Mother Knows Best
by Sapphire Smoke
Summary: Even after everything, there is still one person Parker loves more than anything else in this world. •GenFic Parker-centric but includes Parker/Hardison•
1. Chicken Pox

**Title:** Mother Knows Best  
**Author:** Devereauxx  
**Fandom:** Leverage  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Even after everything, there is still one person Parker loves more than anything else in this world.  
**A/N:** This is a Parker-oriented gen fic... goes back into the past while the story continues in the present. Will include non graphic child abuse and rape, so... there's your warning. Also, my gen has decided to morph into slight Parker/Hardison, but I'm still calling it gen cause the pairings not the point... it's all about Parker. But somehow it's starting to fall into place and uh... I don't know, I feel corrupted. My Parker/Sophie fics are crying somewhere, I'm sure.

**CHAPTER ONE  
The Chicken Pox**

Parker remembers the day she got the chicken pox. She was four. She was really tiny at that age, so tiny that she was actually at least ten pounds underweight for what a girl at her age should be. But not like her mother noticed, she never really noticed anything. No one else noticed either; otherwise she maybe would have been taken away from her earlier than eight years old. Even the school she attended didn't notice, and she was pretty sure they were supposed to notice those kinds of things. But outside of that, Parker was never allowed outside, and no one was allowed inside the house. Not usually, and never again after the last time. Games were only fun inside the house, after all.

Parker remembers the day she got chicken pox because that was the day her aunt and cousin came over, and the last time anyone was ever allowed to come over. Parker didn't know she had a cousin, or even an aunt, or any kind of family outside of her mother. She had no idea where her father was, and her mother used to tell her she was like the Virgin Mary and conceived her through the power of God's love. At the age of four, Parker wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but she was pretty sure that if God loved her so much that He gave her as a gift to her mother, maybe her mother would remember to feed her. She always remembered to play, but her mother was never hungry so she would always forget to feed Parker as well.

Her cousin was five, and her name was Katherine. Parker was so excited to finally have someone her own age to play with that she took her hand and ran up the stairs to show her her room, which then only consisted of a bed and one tiny stuffed bunny. She didn't know kids usually got more than that. Parker grabbed a hold of Bunny and gave it to her, so they could both play with it. That was the funnest day of Parker's life.

Parker vaguely remembers her aunt yelling at her mother about the state of the house, and the drugs, and how she couldn't believe her mother had a child and never told her, because Parker was under-cared for, and that someone with her mental disabilities isn't fit to care for a child. But what she remembers most about that day is that after that, Katherine never came back to play, and her mother made them move the day after. But her mother said it was because she loved her, and her aunt wanted her to take her away from her. Parker didn't want that, she loved her mother. She was… she was her mother.

The next day, Parker itched everywhere. Little red spots started to pop up everywhere and she itched, she itched so much she cried. Her mother wrapped her hands in duck tape, told her not to scratch and threw her in a tub of ice cold water to bring down her fever. She left her there for hours, alone, because Parker wasn't fun to play with when she was sick.

Parker cried a lot in that tub. She remembers hearing the TV in the other room, and the smell of that smoke her mother always made when she played with a little glass toy, a game she could only play alone, and she remembers watching the cockroaches scutter across the floor as she sat in the water. She remembers naming them; one was Bob and the other was Sally. Sally always won the little races they didn't know Parker was pretending they were having in her head as she tried to be a strong little girl and stop crying because she knew how much her mother hated it.

Children of God don't cry because they are a blessing, and if they do then they are spoiled and selfish and don't deserve to be on this earth. And Parker wasn't spoiled or selfish, and she liked being on this earth. So she stopped crying.

When the water got lukewarm, tiny Parker climbed out of the tub, almost slipping. She was still itchy, and still hot, and her stomach felt gross. She went to go tell her mother, but when she got into the living room her stomach started bubbling faster and then she threw up all over the 'new carpet', which was only new to them and not new in general, because it was still pretty nasty looking.

Her mother looked down at her, upset that she had done that. But she gave her a little smile anyway, and threw her a rag. "Clean it up, Princess. Otherwise the garden will die," she told her softly, and little Parker did. Then she lay down on the carpet, or the garden as it was in her mothers mind at the moment, and closed her eyes, still not feeling good, and went to sleep. She thinks Bob and Sally played on her that day, and she's pretty sure her mother didn't notice, or maybe thought they were tiny cats prancing on her amidst the flowers. Her mother always had the best imagination.

"I'm in hell," Hardison groaned as he lay on Nate's couch. Sophie had put mittens on his hands so he wouldn't scratch, and gave him a blanket to put over him. He threw it off of him though, complaining it was too hot for a damn blanket, which made Sophie calmly explain that he needed to sweat the fever out.

"Can I play connect the dots on your skin?" Parker asked, looking at all the tiny dots all over him. She couldn't see them as well as she could see them on herself when she was younger, but that was because Hardison's skin was a lot darker than hers. But that didn't stop her from having a pen in her hand, looking at them like they could be a fun game at the hacker's expense.

"No," Both Hardison and Sophie said at the same time, and Parker slouched a bit, disappointed. She didn't see the point of being here if she couldn't at least draw on Hardison. She put the pen down, squished her face in distaste at being told the word she hates the most, and folded her arms into herself.

"Hardison, put the blanket back on," Sophie told him in a tone that Parker thinks almost sounded like what a mother _should _sound like, except hers never did. Hers was too interested in playing with her glass toy, playing dress up, and pretending that her and Parker were two holy people chosen for great things. Thinking back on it, Parker is pretty sure her mother's brain didn't work the right way. But then again, neither did hers. But she at least knew the difference between a carpet and a garden.

"Sophie, I already have these _damn_ mittens on, which in case you're wondering makes my hands feel like they're two hundred and ten freaking degrees. I'm _fine_," Hardison protested, and held up his hands to further enhance his point. Parker looked from them to Sophie, because she enjoyed watching the interaction between people. It was interesting to her; it was how she tried to learn. And she wanted to know if having mittens on was a suitable substitute for a blanket, in case the situation ever arises that she might need to know that.

Eliot chucked over in the armchair as he flipped the channels on the television set from one sports channel to another. Parker didn't know what the difference was with most of them except the changing colors of outfits. "I can't believe you're getting the chicken pox _again_," he said with a smirk, but didn't look at him.

"This is my first time!" Hardison retorts, and then swats at Sophie with his gloved hands as she tries to put the blanket back on him. That makes Eliot laugh more, though Parker wasn't quite sure if it was because of what Hardison said or because he was trying to fend off Sophie with little to no success. Eliot was still staring at the TV, so Parker was pretty sure it had to be what he said, unless he had eyes in the back of his head. But with all that hair, he might. They would be easy to hide, peeking out between the strands. Parker makes a mental note to check for hidden eyes later.

"Hardison, stop it," Sophie said with a dangerous 'I mean it' tone, and pushed him back down on the couch with one hand and threw a blanket over him with another. Hardison's eyes went wide that she just overpowered him even though he was sick, but relents and decides to just glare at her instead. Parker giggles because she's never seen Hardison act like such a brat before, but she guesses that's just what happens when people get sick.

"Just so we're all clear, since _apparently_ Sophie needs to use _my_ house as a damn hospice… everyone else here _has_ had the chicken pox, right? Rather not have this go on longer than needed," Nate said, still looking annoyed. He sipped at his coffee at the island bar and was tapping his foot against the bar stool like he was impatient about something.

"Yes," both Sophie and Eliot say, and Parker just nods. She's discretely picking up the pen again, deciding that maybe she can just have some fun if nobody knows. But within a second it's being slapped out of her hand gently by Sophie, who gives her a look like she was being naughty or something. Parker wonders if maybe she has eyes in the back of her head too, or maybe somewhere else, because that was kind of creepy how she just _knew_ Parker had picked up the pen again.

"We said no," she tells her, and Parker just narrows her eyes at her. Deciding this corner of the room wasn't very much fun, she gets up and decides to go sit on the arm of Eliot's chair and see if she can figure out what's so fascinating to him about big muscled men in tight pants running around a field. It sounds kind of homosexual to her, but she knows a lot of guys like it and if it was sign of being gay than the world would have stopped reproducing and everyone would die off. Maybe. Unless they're all bisexual.

"Parker, there's this concept called personal space," Eliot tells her without looking at her; he's still staring at the screen. Parker tries to follow his eyesight, and she's pretty sure he's looking at one of the player's butts. But maybe she was wrong. Everyone always tells her she's wrong about a lot of stuff.

"People say that a lot," Parker replies, because they do. To her, anyway. She's not quite sure why people tell her that, because she can't seem to make heads or tails from that statement.

"Yes, it means you should go away," Eliot tells her, and Parker glares. Well, at least someone told her what it means, even if it was… mean. She takes his hair and brushes it to the side, which makes Eliot jump halfway out his skin and it looked like he was restraining himself from hitting her.

"What are you doing?!" he asks, and gets up, moving away from her. Parker shrugs and slumps into the chair he was once sitting it. It was warm from his butt. He's still looking at her like she did something wrong.

"I was checking for extra eyes," she tells him, and he looks at her like she's gone insane. Parker looks at Sophie, knowing that if it were an insane thing to do she would at least let her know.

"Eliot, be nice to Parker and Parker, don't touch Eliot's hair," Sophie says, like she's dictating some sort of children's play date. Parker's seen them on TV, and Sophie was starting to act like how television mothers do. But Parker and Eliot weren't children, so she didn't get it.

"Yeah, it's like his sacred vessel," Hardison snorts as he laughs, but then groans in pain and Sophie jumps up off of the couch just as Hardison rolls over and pukes onto the floor.

"Great," Nate mutters, and gets up off of the barstool he was sitting on and decides to go upstairs, away from sick Hardison and maybe-children Eliot and Parker. As he climbs the stairs, Parker does what she thinks is the right thing and gets up, getting a dish towel and throws it to Hardison.

"Clean it up," she tells him, because that's what her mother told her. Sophie looks at her like that was the completely wrong thing to do, so Parker feels bad at that look she's giving her and sits back in the chair that was once Eliot's. She feels herself start to pout; she thought that was the right thing to do. She didn't like it when she found out what she thought was okay really wasn't.

"Parker, he's sick," Sophie tells her in that tone Parker hates, because it makes her feel bad about herself. Sophie picks up the towel and cleans up Hardison's mess, which Eliot had taken one look at and decided to retreat back to his apartment down the hall to watch the game without being interrupted. Hardison groans a bit and swears, and Parker doesn't know what to do. She doesn't like seeing Hardison look all icky, and feeling just as bad.

Sophie brings the towel into the kitchen and washes it, which Parker thinks is really gross, and then after washing her hands comes back with a small wastebasket to put near the couch. Parker turns around, still feeling upset about being chided, and grabs the remote and starts flipping through the channels. Finding Dora the Explorer, she leaves it on. Hardison groans and starts complaining about the TV then.

"I'm trying to learn Spanish," Parker tells him, like it should be obvious why she put the channel on there. It might be a kid's show, but she's already started to learn things. But of course, since Hardison's sick, he gets his way. She doesn't understand that, she never got her way when she was sick.

"Parker, come on, turn off the TV," Sophie tells her, and Parker turns it off and slams the remote down on the table. She wanted Sophie to stop using that tone with her, she didn't like it. "Let's leave Hardison to rest, okay?"

"But this is the living room," Parker protests, because that means it's everyone's area. But Sophie gives her that look and Parker storms past her and out the door, walking down the hallway to go into her own apartment. She thought they were all going to stay together and have some fun tonight, but no one seemed to want to do that.

Even though Hardison had bought the apartment building they all lived in right now, down the hall from each other, they still didn't hang out. Not really, anyway. And Parker wanted to hang out, she wanted to have fun with the only people she knows, but no one ever wanted to have fun with her. Sometimes she doesn't know why she stays with these people, but if she was to be honest with herself, they were the only thing she knew now. They were her new family, and it didn't matter if she always liked them or they always liked her. After all, she had been in a lot of different families, and if there was one thing she knew, not all families loved each other.

**TBC…**


	2. What's Right Is Wrong

_**A/N: I want to say thank you for those people who have reviewed and/or taken an interest in this story - I've gotten six story alerts so far so, yay! I don't usually write gen so this is a bit new for me so all feedback is welcome (and probably needed lol)**_

**CHAPTER TWO  
What's Right Is Wrong**

There was a knock on her door only a moment after Parker had closed it, and Parker turned to look at it like it was the thing that was bothering her, and not the person on the other side of it. She didn't move though, and didn't go to open it. She was mad after all, and she was sure Sophie would tell her she had no right to be. After all, Hardison was sick. Because everyone else got the memo that sick people got it all, except for her.

"Parker, please open the door," Sophie calls through it, and Parker rolls her eyes. "I'll pick the lock if I have to," Sophie says once there's only silence that meets her request and Parker smirks. She thinks she might like Sophie to pick the lock, just because it would be one more thing that would bother her. She hears a heavy sigh on the other side of the door, then silence for a minute before she starts to hear familiar clicks.

Parker backs up into her own living room, knowing Sophie's going to mad that she made her do that, and sits on the far end of her couch. When the door swings open, Sophie's looking at her like she was part annoyed, and yet part curious. Parker didn't understand why she was looking at her like she was trying to figure her out; she thinks she's always been clear about who she is.

"Parker," Sophie starts, and comes inside, closing the door behind her. She starts to walk over to her as she asks her, "What's wrong?" Parker gives her a look like she's insane, because she really didn't want to talk about what was wrong. She folds her arms into herself and props her feet onto her coffee table.

"Nothing."

"Right," Sophie says and sits next to her on the couch. Parker didn't look at her, she was being grumpy. She was angry at Sophie's tone. It made it worse cause she was all British and proper and older and… whatever else. "You stormed out for absolutely no reason then?"

"Yup."

Sophie gave her a look like she knows better, and Parker hates that she reads people. She didn't want to be read, she wasn't a book. She was a person. "You're mad because I told you what you said wasn't the right thing to do," Sophie tells her and Parker finally looks at her.

"Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?" Parker asks, because there seemed to be no point in it. If Sophie already knew what was wrong, why did she ask in the first place? Wasn't that just wasting time?

"To give you a chance to tell me yourself, which obviously was a waste of time," Sophie responds, and Parker has to agree. It was a waste of time. Parker turns back to look at the TV, only it wasn't on, so all she did was stare at her and Sophie's reflection in it. Sophie just kept staring at her though.

"Look Parker, I know you have some trouble with what's wrong and what's right, and I understand that, okay? I do. But you always say you want to learn what's right, so when I correct you I don't think you should get mad about it," Sophie tells her and Parker just bobbed her head along to every word Sophie said sarcastically, only because she was mad that she was right. She did always ask Sophie how to do and say normal things, and she got all pissed off when she did. But it was just because…

"But I knew that was right," she tells her, then yells at herself in her head. That was just supposed to stay inside there. She hates when it does that, just spits things out of her mouth like her brain couldn't just keep it in there due to not having enough storage space or something. She was planning on just being silent throughout the rest of this conversation. That didn't happen.

"Why did you think that?" Sophie asks, like she's curious, almost like she wants to study her or something. But Parker doesn't tell her it was because that's what her mother told her. She didn't want to tell Sophie about her mother. She would judge, just like everyone else did. They judged her mother because she thought she was crazy. And maybe she didn't feed her all that much, maybe she didn't have nice clothes or nice things, but she played with her all the time. They made up their own little imaginary world where everything was beautiful and they lived happily ever after. Her mother loved her.

"I just did," Parker says, and gets up off the couch. She wants Sophie to go away, because she's pretty sure she's going to start to pry into her life even though she wants no one to pry into hers. It's hypocritical.

"Alright," Sophie says, and Parker stops where she is and turns to look at her. She's surprised Sophie let it go. She's surprised so much she can't help but ask:

"That's it?"

"Yeah," Sophie says, and smiles a bit at her, just out of the corner of her mouth. "If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. But Parker… just for a future reference? Taking care of someone who is sick is the right thing to do, alright?" Parker just nods, and tries to store that somewhere in her memory, even though it might already be overloaded since things always just try to fly out of her brain and out her mouth. But she tries, because she wants to remember. Even though that meant that her mother was wrong.

"I'm going to go see check on Hardison," she tells her, and gets up. Parker nods again, and Sophie turns to look at her. "And maybe when he's better you can apologize for being so mean to him when he's sick. He likes you a lot, you know." The way Sophie said that made Parker think that she thinks Hardison might like her a little bit more than what she originally thought, but she thinks that's crazy. No one has ever liked her like that. But she nods again.

"Okay."

Sophie smiles at her, and then leaves. When she shuts the door behind her, Parker sits back down on the couch and sighs. She hates when things like this happen. When she finds out again that her mother is wrong. But she's not stupid, or jaded in any way. She knows her mother was a drug addict and kind of crazy. She knows now, as an adult, that maybe it was the right decision for Social Services to take her away, but it still hurts. It hurts because where she ended up, _all _the place she ended up, were so much worse than home. Her mother at least loved her.

The first place she ended up in was Camden, Illinois. She lived in one of those neighborhoods that you always see on old television shows. The one's with the perfect lawns and all the little houses lined up in a row. The neighbors smiling and waving to each other every day when they go out to get the morning paper. But no matter how good the house looked from the outside, inside it had horrible secrets.

She was crying when she got there. She was eight, maybe too old to cry (as she was told over and over again by her foster brother the entire ten months that she lived there), but she missed her mother. She missed the games they used to play, to pretend that life wasn't as bad for them as it really was. And yes, maybe she could finally get meals here, but if she could choose not having meals over what really happened in that house, she would choose not eating. After all, she had gotten used to that.

The reason her foster parents seem to live so nicely was because they tended to hoard foster children like investments, along with working full time jobs. She shared a room with two of her foster sisters, Julia and Sarah, and down the hall Jason and Billy shared another room. But not Mark, he got his own. He was the oldest, and had been there the longest. He was sixteen, and looked like he wanted to be a zombie with the clothes that he wore and the makeup her put on. Parker didn't think guys wore makeup until she saw him. Her foster parents always chided him about his wardrobe on their way out the door, but only because it seemed more of formality to do so rather than if they actually cared.

They were almost never home, so they never actually knew what went on in the house. They left out food, or left out money for them to order pizza, and always bought them new clothes when they needed it. But they weren't actually parents; if they were then they would have known what was going on inside their own house and made it stop. But they didn't care; all they cared about was money and finding new ways to get it.

Parker knew something was wrong in that house when she first came into the room she shared with both Julia and Sarah, and they both sighed in almost relief. Parker looked at them funny with her tear stained cheeks and put her knapsack and stuffed bunny on the bed that was designated for her. Julia was about six, and Sarah about Parker's age, maybe a year older.

"You're prettier than us," Sarah said, like it was the best thing in the world. Parker just sniffed and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and looked at her weird.

"So?" She knew she was, but she didn't understand why that meant anything. But they both just looked at each other, and they didn't say anything. Parker wishes they would have warned her, but if they did there probably wasn't anything she could do about it anyway.

Parker found out that the prettiest girl in the house seemed to be the one Mark chose to play with. When he asked her to play a game, Parker was excited. None of the other children talked to her, and even though Mark was much older, she was glad that he wanted to play with her. All the other children looked at each other like they knew something, all of them younger than Parker herself except for Sarah, but Parker just thought they were all just jealous that he wanted to play with her and not them.

He took her hand and led her into his room, and as he shut the door behind them Parker looked around in wide-eyed fascination. She had never seen the inside of his room before, and it was all dark, with skulls and writing on the wall, and weird pictures hanging from it. Mark went over to his bed and sat down, and patted the bed next to him for her to sit, so she did. She was excited about playing, after all.

"What are we gonna play?" she asked him, smiling. He smiled back, and she had a weird feeling about the way that he smiled but didn't think about it too much. A game was a game after all; her mother and her always played games with her. And not those stupid games like Barbies that Julia and Sarah played, they played imagination games.

"It's called doctor," he told her. "Do you wanna play?" he put his hand on her leg, and Parker nods. She does want to play, even though she's never played it before. But Doctor sounded fun.

But it wasn't fun… it wasn't fun at all.

Parker didn't care that she had to take off her clothes for it, after all, how could a Doctor properly diagnose what was wrong with her if he couldn't see everything? At least, that's what he said. And there wasn't anything wrong with being naked. Her and her mother would sometimes be naked and run around the house, pretending to be wood nymphs. Parker still isn't sure what those are, exactly. But her mother always told her that no matter what anyone said, being naked wasn't a bad thing. Everyone was born naked after all.

But Parker knew when he started touching her that there was something wrong with that. She was eight, and she wasn't slow or stupid. She did know about sex, or at least a little bit about it. And she knew he shouldn't be touching her like that. So she kicked at him, and told him to stop, but when he pinned her against the bed and told her to shut up and stop crying, she had the feeble hope that maybe someone would stop him.

But no one did. No one ever did for the whole ten months she was there. Her foster parents were never home, and the other children pretended they didn't hear her because all they cared about was that it was happen it wasn't happening to them anymore.

A lot of things that happened there Parker can blame for why she's so fucked up now. The raping, her witnessing the murder of a clown by a horse, and just the fact that no one cared. No one loved her. No one even knew she really existed outside of Mark, and she didn't like how he noticed her. She felt totally abandoned, and part of her hated her mother for letting her go then. Part of her wondered why she could just give up her little girl, her holy Princess. But she knows now she had no choice. She wonders what happened to her mother, and she finds herself missing her all the time. She might not have been the best, but she was hers.

It was finally Sarah who broke and told a teacher at school what was happening inside of their house. Parker didn't know why she did it, maybe because she was afraid Parker was going to go crazy one day because of all this and finally kill her.

She did get into a fight with her, about two months before they got taken away. She screamed at her, hit her, slammed her against a wall and wanted to know why no one ever does anything, and why she didn't even tell her it was going to happen. Her foster parents grounded her for that, which just made it worse. Not being able to leave the house made it worse. She remembers only vaguely picking up a pencil and wanting to stab her with it. She blamed her, because she knew she was the one Mark had before she came into the picture, she was the second prettiest. But Parker didn't stab her, but only because Jason and Billy slammed into her, making her fall to the ground and drop the pencil.

All of the kids were taken away from her foster parents the very next day after Sarah told. And it was off to another one, off to another hell. Parker sighed and got off of her couch, not wanting to think about it. She carried herself into her bedroom and laid on her bed, grabbing a hold of the only good thing she could link to her past… her stuffed bunny. The only real toy her mother ever gave her.

**TBC…**


	3. The Cellar Monster

**CHAPTER THREE  
The Cellar Monster**

Four days later, it was Parker's turn to play nurse to Hardison. Sophie told her that it would be a nice thing for her to do, and since they weren't doing any jobs at the moment due to Hardison being polka-dotted, Parker found that she didn't have anything better to do anyway. She thought about dressing up in one of those tiny nurse uniforms, because she knows guys like that kind of thing, there's entire websites on it, but Sophie told her that it would probably give him a heart attack, and possibly the wrong idea, and that they were trying to make him better. Parker still doesn't understand how an outfit can evoke a heart attack, though. Or another idea that didn't mean "I'm trying to take care of you."

But Parker still didn't know how to take care of people, except that if he vomits than she should be the one to clean it up. She was really, really hoping he wasn't going to do that, because she didn't want to do that. So instead, as he lay on her couch, she sat on the coffee table across from him and just stared at him. Waiting for him to do something that she knew how to take care of. His fever had gone down, so now he was just itchy all the time.

Hardison's eyes kept flickering from the television set back to her for a bit before he asked, "What's with the staring? Do I got something on my face?" He put his hands all over his face, as if trying to find something that didn't exist. Well, except the spots, but he's had them for four days now, so Parker's kind of gotten used to them.

"I'm just waiting for you to do something," Parker tells him, and tilts her head to the side to peer at him more closely. It took a lot of restraint for her to not draw on him. She kept having these urges, and when usually she would just go for it and not care; apparently no one wanted her to make pictures on his skin. But the dots were _taunting _her.

"Like what?" Hardison asked, his hands leaving his face. Parker shrugged, and a little smirk started to play at the hacker's lips. "Sophie made you do this, didn't she?"

"Yes, but I didn't have anything better to do," Parker tells him honestly. Hardison smirks more, even though after Parker said it she thought she probably wasn't supposed to. That might have hurt his feelings, but it didn't seem to. She's been trying to get better with that, the whole… feelings thing. Or being aware other people have them. "I really want to draw on you," she tells him, because she does. She couldn't help herself from voicing it outloud.

Hardison laughed a bit but nodded his head at her. "Fine, knock yourself out." Parker perked up instantly. Hardison was really going to let her?

She grinned ear to ear and got up, running into the other room to get a pen. When she came back she sat down next to him, making him shift a bit on the couch to give her some room. Hardison held out his arm at her, looking almost amused, as she looked at the dots all over his skin like she was deciding her plan of action. Now that she could, she wanted to do it right. If there was a right way to draw on someone who has the chicken pox, anyway.

The pen connected with his skin and she started to draw. Hardison watched her for awhile, as she had a look of pure concentration as she bit lightly on her tongue. "Why'd you storm out the other day?" he asked her as she drew something like looked vaguely like a goat on his skin.

"Sophie made me mad," Parker answers without thinking, too busy concentrating on her drawing. She was making a cellar monster, or at least what she thinks a cellar monster would look like if it was in the connect the dots book for children. But then again, maybe a cellar monster would scare some kids, so it probably would never be in one of those.

"Cause you told me to clean up my own mess?" Hardison pried, knowing she was too busy paying attention to something else to realize she was answering his questions. Distracting her was always the best way to get her to reveal things; otherwise she tries to stop herself.

"It was the right thing to do," Parker mumbles, too distracted in her artwork. She was giving the cellar monster horns now. "My moth—" and then she stopped, realizing what she was about to say. The pen stops moving, and her eyes flicker up at Hardison. "I'm done now," she says, leaving the drawing unfinished.

But Hardison caught her slip. "Your mother?" he asked, like the concept was foreign to him. Parker had never talked about her real parents, and only vaguely talked about her foster experience, but nowhere near in depth. Parker looked at him, blinked, and went to stand up. Hardison tried to grab at her to have her sit back down, but his mitten covered hands made it hard.

"I'm done," Parker repeats. She didn't like that she said that, and she was trying to look at him blankly, like it didn't matter so she could avoid it. But it was Hardison, avoiding anything with Hardison was pretty impossible. She went and sat back down across from him on the coffee table, and just looked at him. Nate would never ask, Eliot wouldn't care, and Sophie would pry so much Parker would end up yelling at her. But Parker couldn't yell at Hardison for some reason.

"No you're not," Hardison tells her, and Parker doesn't like that he's prying, until he motions at the half done drawing on his skin and said, "I only got half a goat on me." Parker blinks, staring at the picture.

"It's not a _goat_," she tells him, like he should know that, and that the very thought of it being something as lame as a goat was absurd. "It's a cellar monster." Hardison doesn't smirk at that, or make fun of her like she knows a lot of people would. Instead he just points at his skin again where the picture was.

"Well my cellar monster ain't done. I'd look like a damn fool walking around with half a cellar monster on me, wouldn't I?" he says, and Parker purses her lips. He's right; he would look like an idiot with it only half done. She thinks for a moment before she gets up again and sits back down next to him. Hardison holds his arm back out to her, and her eyes flicker back up at him for a moment before a small smile flashes across her face before it's gone again and she's back to concentrating on her drawing.

There's silence between the two of them for awhile as Parker works. After she had connected all the dots, she starts to shade and color in a little bit. Well, as much as one could do with a pen on skin. Finally Hardison spoke, "You know I don't judge you, right?"

"Mhm," Parker says, distracted again. She could decide if she wanted to horns light or darker than the actual monster it's self. It was an important decision, after all.

"And I ain't gonna tell nobody else," Hardison goes on, and Parker just nods. She knows all this. Well, she knows all of this in general, she didn't seem to quite get the point that he was continuing to pry, because after all, she was far too busy being an artist.

"So if you ever want to talk about your mom…" Hardison trailed off, and Parker's pen stopped again. She looked up at him, half in the middle of making eyes on the cellar monster.

"There's nothing to talk about," she says, and goes back to drawing the eyes. She didn't want to really get into this, but it hard to say no to Hardison some times. She doesn't really know why.

"Did you love her?" Hardison asks, and Parker shrugs as she continues to draw.

"She's my mom," Parker says, as if it should answer the question. "Don't you love your mom?" Her voice shook only a little as she said it, barely noticeable, but she herself noticed it. She was nervous talking about this. She knew Hardison wouldn't judge her, out of everyone else, but she's never… she's never talked about her mother. Ever.

"Never knew my mom. My real one, anyway," Hardison tells her, and that makes Parker look up at him. He didn't know who his mom was?

"You don't know who she is?" Parker asks.

"I know her name, know she's in jail right now in Pittsburg. Looked her up once," Hardison said, after Parker gave him a questioning look as to how he knew that. But he went on. "Went into the system when I was one, so I don't remember her."

"Oh," Parker says. They look at each other for a moment before she dips her head back down to concentrating on her drawing. It was almost done. "I was eight," she tells him, without looking up. Sophie always told her that when someone offers up a bit of information about themselves that your supposed to offer up some back. So she chose that little piece of information. That was all she was going to say.

"So you were with her for awhile then," Hardison observes, and Parker just nods. She feels kind of uncomfortable, having this conversation, but it hasn't gotten too bad yet. Not bad enough to the point that she would need to storm out and stop playing nurse to Hardison. Even though Hardison really didn't need a nurse, cause all he was was itchy now. "You know where she is?" he asked her, and Parker shook her head.

She had never looked for her mother. She didn't know what the point of it would be. It's not like she was a little girl anymore, it's not like she needed her. She wasn't around when she really needed her to be, even though if she was Parker doubt she could have helped her. Her mother was damaged after all.

They were both quiet for a little while before Hardison asked, "What was her name? Mine's was Janet." Parker is starting to get what Hardison's doing. When he asks a question, he has to answer it himself, or has to have already done so earlier. That way Parker feels trapped into answering, like she has to. And it was working, unfortunately.

"Roma," Parker mutters, just trying to pay attention the drawing. The more she pays attention to it, the less scary it is that she's telling him stuff. She really hopes he won't tell anybody else.

"Roma? That's a cool name," Hardison says, and Parker finds herself smiling all of a sudden, feeling oddly more comfortable because it was like Hardison accepted a part of his mother, even if it was something as small as her name.

"I dunno if that's her real name," Parker says with a shrug as she does the finishing touches on her drawing. "She used to like to pretend a lot. Queen Roma of the Britannia Provinces, with Princess—" Parker stops then, realizing she got too comfortable too quickly and said too much. She coughs a bit, looking a little awkward and just shrugs.

"Sounds fun," Hardison says softly, and Parker just nods a bit before she swallows a bit heavily. She clears her throat again and sits up, taking the pen off of his skin.

"Done!" she tells him, probably a bit more enthusiastically than it called for, pointing at the drawing. But she was done with that conversation, and she wanted to let him know that without being all… upfront about it. Because that always makes people ask questions.

Hardison turns his arm so he can look at it and nods in approval. "Not bad, I could sport this," he says, and Parker can't help but grin a little bit. If she was to be honest with herself, it _was_ the coolest cellar monster ever. He looked up at her, and Parker had the fleeting fear that he was going to continue to press her, but he says, "Want to watch Dora?"

Parker blinks at him. "You hate Dora." Because with how much he complained the other day, he had to have. She didn't really know how one could hate a cartoon though, except maybe Ren and Stimpy. Because well, that one was just gross, and completely unnecessary.

"I don't _hate_ Dora," he says, "But you seem to like it, so if you want to watch it…"

"You want to watch something just because I like it?" Parker asks him, just because that seemed absurd. Why would someone want to watch something they don't like just because someone else likes it? That seemed pointless to her. She wouldn't watch something just because someone else thought it was cool, unless it actually was. But Dora was cool and… now she's confusing herself.

"Well I like you so…" Hardison starts, then his eyes go wide a minute and he revises quickly, "I mean like as a friend, ya know… Me and you, friends. That watch TV together."

"Right," Parker says, nodding, just trying to agree with him. That confused her too, whatever he was doing. Like he was saying something he didn't mean. Only she knew he meant it, because they were friends, her and Hardison at least. He was the closest out of all of them to her, and while she's never really had friends she's sure that this is what it would feel like.

"Dora?" Hardison asks feebly, trying to steer the conversation away from the awkwardness.

"Is it on?" Parker asks, and looks at the television. It was on mute, and on whatever cop show he was watching before.

"I don't know, I thought you would know," Hardison says, and starts flipping through the channels. But Nickelodeon wasn't playing Dora, they were playing…

"Spongebob!" Parker exclaims, and grabs the remote out of his hand. They were going to watch Spongebob, whether Hardison liked it or not. Because Spongebob was definitely cool. She took it off of mute and grinned wide.

"Alright, I gotta agree on the awesome that is Spongebob," Hardison says, and Parker's glad he agrees. She shifts on the couch, trying to get some room, but it's hard so she pokes at him.

"Move over," she tells him.

He shifts a bit to the right, but there isn't a lot of room so he moves his legs over to stretch out and says, "Come here," and holds the blanket back so she can settle herself in next to him. Parker positions herself against his chest, him behind her, but when she moves her goes, "Okay ow, Parker, that was my rib."

"Sorry," Parker says, trying to get comfortable. Finally she gives up and just lays her head on Hardison's forearm, the one that was stretched out across the arm of the couch. It was the only comfortable place, after all. She wasn't really big on the whole touching thing with other people, but with Hardison it wasn't so bad. Even if he was spotty.

Hardison didn't seem to know what to do with his other arm though, and kept moving it so awkwardly that Parker just grabbed it and wrapped it around her torso, just so it could stay still. She couldn't concentrate on the TV with random body parts flying around in her peripheral vision.

"Oh, didn't know you'd want me to—" Hardison starts, but is interrupted halfway through his sentence.

"Shh, I like this one."

**TBC…**


	4. Robot

**CHAPTER FOUR  
Robot**

Parker remembers being taken to Kansas City. She remembers the social worker's car pulling up to a little townhouse in less than mint condition. She remembers it was raining, and when she put her hand on the car window it was cold, and as she slid it down she could see through the hazy mist a man and his wife standing in the doorway, looking at her. They didn't smile, they didn't wave… they just stared. The rain beat down heavy and the social worker handed her an umbrella, and guided her into her new house, one hand on her shoulder. Protecting the little damaged girl. If only he knew what he was bringing her into would only hurt more than help.

Parker was the only foster child in that house. Her new foster father was a control freak, which only escalated when he had another person to control other than just his battered wife. He wanted things done precisely the right way or he would get angry. Parker was so numb by this time by how violated she felt due to the last ten months in her life that for a long time she just followed whatever he said blindly. Nothing really mattered to her anymore, she felt so hollow inside.

She attended regular therapy sessions that were paid for by the state. Parker's sure that if her new foster family had to pay for it then she wouldn't have been allowed to attend, but after the system had moved her due to the regular rapes, they thought that if she talked about it with a total stranger that she would be fixed. That some how it would make everything better. Parker still doesn't understand why they would think something so moronic.

To this day sometimes when she closes her eyes she can see him on top of her, feel his hands holding her arms down, and his flesh against hers. She can smell his breath that always seemed to be tinted with something sweet, but so sweet it was almost sickening. She can hear her own echoed screams in the distance and feel the tears run down her cheeks… and then she realizes the tears are still real.

Parker didn't talk very much. Or at all, really. She wouldn't speak for days or weeks at a time sometimes, just not finding anything ever worth saying. Her therapy sessions tended to be very one sided due to that, and she could tell her therapist was starting to get frustrated with her, even though she would never admit it. But talking just didn't seem important, because it would never change anything. The only thing she would talk to was Bunny, who she talked to in her head. Bunny could hear her thoughts; they had a special way of communicating. Plus, that way, Bunny could keep her secrets with no fear of anyone overhearing them.

Her grades started slipping in school because she didn't care enough about them anymore. She read a lot, and learned a lot, but she just didn't care to do the work. She was sad all the time, and felt almost like a turtle: retreating into herself. But as her grades slipped, her foster father got worse. He would beat her more regularly than his own wife, and after almost a year it started to break something inside of Parker: the mute, damaged, child rape victim. It was like the void inside of her started to get replaced by incredible anger. Anger at everyone, anger at the whole world, and especially anger at her foster father. After everything she had already went through, she did not deserve to be another victim.

The day he took Bunny was the day she snapped. But it was also the day that changed everything. It was just a passing taunt, telling her to either do what he says or be a better thief, not expecting her to choose the latter. But she did, and she got Bunny back. As she walked out of that house with him in her arms she stopped, and she waited. The explosion was like her final 'fuck you'. To him, to this life, to the whole world.

She smiled for the first time in almost a year after that.

Parker remembers being sat in a chair in a little small room in the police station, as the cops looked at her in disbelief. They couldn't believe a girl who was almost ten could figure out how to make their house explode. But she just stared back blankly, not letting them know how stupid they are for underestimating her. They act like she didn't love to read, and didn't like to learn. That children can't know these things because they're innocent. But her innocence was ripped away from her, so she didn't see how they were surprised.

Reading was her escape from the world. She ran away to fantasy worlds so much she always found herself wishing she was part of them. She had spent most of her time in the library, and while she did spend most of her time reading fiction, she found herself picking up a book or two on other subjects. That's how she learned how to make a small explosive. Nothing major, and nothing that could make an entire house go up in flames. But if you place it near the gas tank in the car in the garage, then one tiny pop can end up turning into a very big boom.

After that, Parker spent the next three years in a psychiatric hospital.

"She's fucking insane, you need to do something about her!" Eliot told Sophie, like she was Parker's keeper or something. Like she, out of all of them, might have the power to make her stop being an adrenaline junkie that cares more about getting off from the thrill than how it could be dangerous for other people. Sophie just sighs.

"She doesn't understand—" Hardison starts to say, but is interrupted by the furious hitter. It was a couple days after Parker had played nurse for him, and he was better now. Parker found that she missed the spots; they were fun to play with after all.

"Don't defend her, Hardison. She could have broken my hand!" Eliot yells, and holds out his hand to further prove his point. Parker thinks he's being a baby about it though, because she only broke one finger, not his entire hand. The other four were still quite usable.

Parker doesn't know if they know that she can hear them. Maybe they do and just don't care. But she's up the stairs, perched on the top one, stealing glances at the three of them down below. Nate had already left due to how angry Eliot was, saying he had a meeting with a potential client. But everyone just thought he was just trying to get away from the stress, because being around lots of loud yelling can drive him to drink again.

Sophie's eyes flicker up the stairs and Parker pushes herself back out of the line of sight, but she's sure that the grifter had seen her. She should have been more careful, paid more attention. Right now all she could think about is how she wished people would stop calling her crazy, because she's not. If she was crazy, wouldn't she be talking to walls or torturing people in her basement?

Not that she has a basement. Maybe she could do it in the laundry room. Why was she thinking about this?

Parker peers back over the edge before seeing Hardison continue to defend her. "Okay drama queen," Hardison says, looking at him like he was being ridiculous. "It was one finger, and it was an _accident_." He enunciates the word heavily, which makes Eliot glare and start to open his mouth again before Sophie interrupts.

"Maybe we should take this somewhere else," she says in a low voice, and points to the top of the stairs discreetly to let them know that Parker was sitting up there, listening.

Parker ducks back just before the other two look up, and sits there quietly. Part of her feels like she should run away, just go somewhere, but doesn't know where she should go. Plus, leaving from upstairs would mean going out the window, and Nate told her she needs to stop scaling the building walls. He yelled last time, and his wrinkles on his forehead started looking like a Roman map. He got even madder when Parker voiced this observation outloud.

"She doesn't care!" Eliot yells, still furious. Parker isn't sure if he's right or not. She did feel bad that she ended up breaking his finger with her stunt that she intentionally involved Eliot but unintentionally got him hurt, but he was being cranky and mean, so her caring was starting to slip away.

"She has feelings too, man. You need to stop calling her crazy," Hardison tells him seriously, but Eliot doesn't listen. Eliot never listens to anything when he's angry, he's just angry and the whole world should listen to him.

"Parker doesn't have feelings! She's a freaking robot stuck inside a size two model!" Eliot yells, and waves his finger about some more like that should excuse the fact that he just called Parker a robot. But Parker hasn't comprehended that part yet, all she can do is think about how she's not tall enough or have enough boobs to be a model.

"She's not a robot!" Sophie exclaims, and that's when it clicks in Parker's head what he just said. She doesn't like it, so she quietly picks herself off of the ground and decides she'll try her luck with the window and hopefully Nate will never know. She wasn't a robot. She was a person. And she was a size three, not two. Well, sometimes she was a two, it depended on the jeans.

Parker hears footsteps coming up the stairs, and Parker's already half out the window. She's on the ledge when she hears her name being called by Hardison, and barely descending when he sticks his head out the window. She freezes; she wasn't supposed to get caught. He was supposed to look everywhere upstairs before realizing she went out the window, not figure out the window thing first. She looks up at him.

"Parker, come back inside," he tells her, and holds out his hand to her. She looks at it for a minute, debating on just continue to leave and ignore his gesture, but for some reason with Hardison she could never just do that, so she takes his hand and lets her pull her back inside. She doesn't speak, she decides against it just incase her voice fails her. Her insides were starting to feel funny from being called a robot. She thinks she might cry, but she doesn't do that. Not anymore. Not in a long time.

"Eliot's just being a dick because it's a finger on his right hand that's broken," Hardison offers after he sits her down in a chair and takes one opposite her. Then he smirks, "And you know what _that _means."

Parker blinks and doesn't answer for a moment so she can get a hold over her voice and that weird feeling inside of her. Finally she says, "He's mad because he won't be able to write?"

It's Hardison's turn to blink at her. "Uh, no. Not what I meant," he says, and does this little awkward cough. Parker just stares back at him, waiting for him to tell her what he meant, but he doesn't. Instead he says, "Just ignore him. You know he'll grumble an apology later for being such an asshole."

Parker isn't entirely sure about that, since Eliot had yet to apologize to her for calling her crazy. Ever. Sure she's seen him apologize to Hardison for implying that he was a gay virgin during one of his angry moments, but Parker knows that's only because Sophie got on to him. She's sure Sophie's doing the same thing downstairs right now.

"He doesn't like me," Parker says, because she knows he doesn't. He tolerates her… sometimes. Just like Nate, but Nate isn't so mean most of the time. He can be, especially now that he's sober (because it makes him a bigger bastard, apparently) and doesn't realize he should just walk away. But he's gotten better at that.

"If he doesn't like you, why did he beat up that guy at the bar for you last week?" Hardison asks, and Parker flashes back to that moment. Some drunken man was all over her in the bar downstairs, trying to touch her, and after she kneed him in the balls Eliot came out of nowhere and just started to pound on him.

"He just likes to hit people, and things," Parker says, then adds without missing a beat. "I can take care of myself." Because she can. She knows how to fight, even before Eliot started to teach her more things.

"He did it cause he gives a shit, even though he'll never admit it. He cares," Hardison tells her, and Parker just shrugs. She just thinks Hardison's trying to look on the bright side of things, instead of the logical answer. But then he continues, as if reading her mind before. "And he spends time with you, teaching you techniques."

Parker just thinks he does that because he's bored. "He gets bored," she says. Hardison just looks at her like she's missing something, and she doesn't like that look. She always wants to know what she's missing, but no one ever likes to tell her.

"If that's what you think," Hardison says, and shrugs a bit. He's letting her believe what she wants, but now Parker isn't so sure that what she believes is the truth, even though it seems logical. He gets up then, and Parker just looks at him. There's silence for a moment before he says, "I looked up something for you. If you want you can come over later… I'll show it to you."

Parker's confused, not remembering when she asked him to look something up for her. So she asks him, "What is it?" But she could already tell from the way Hardison presented the statement that he wasn't going to tell her now.

"I'll show you later," he says, then looks down the stairwell. "Coast is clear," he adds, before looking back at her. "You can use the door for your escape this time." Parker can't help the small smile that was threatening to tug at the corner of her lips, and Hardison sees it. He smiles back at her softly before turning and descending the stairs.

Parker only sits there for a moment longer, wondering what it is that he looked up for her, before she sneaks down the stairs and out the door, retreating back to her own apartment. And just like Hardison said, and hour or two later Eliot had apologized to her for calling her a robot, all grumbles with no eye contact. She knew Sophie had made him do it.

But just like _she_ thought, he didn't apologize for calling her crazy. Again.

**TBC…**


	5. Bonnie & Clyde

**CHAPTER FIVE  
Bonnie & Clyde**

"Stop staring at me."

Parker hated it in there. Being trapped in a building for three years of your life, only ever allowed to go outside and see the sun whenever the entire adolescent ward was "good", which was hardly ever in a mental hospital. Someone was always screaming, or throwing things, or trying to kill themselves, or set someone on fire…

"I _said_, stop starin' at me, Blondie!"

It was the same day over and over. Wake up, take meds, have breakfast, have group, have individual counseling, have lunch, then a free period, then two more groups, dinner, meds, another free time, and then lights out by ten. The same boring day over and over and over again. It never changed, unless one of the other crazy people got a hold of a pen and tried to stab an orderly or something. But other than that, not much changed.

"I'd like to burn that pretty blonde hair off your head."

Parker's eyes flickered over to the girl in front of her; finally looking at her even though she was convinced she was staring at her before. Her name was Justine, and from what Parker heard she was put in the hospital for lighting her little sister on fire one night in her bed. She was maybe fourteen, and thought she was this bad ass teenager. She had apparently been in here since she was seven, so she thought she owned the place.

Parker was twelve, but her being two years older and a pyromaniac that apparently would love to burn her hair off her didn't scare her. Parker never cared enough to be scared by anyone. She just stared at her, this same blank stare she always has, and Justine's hardened look faltered.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked her, looking at Parker like she was damaged goods. But like she was one to talk. Parker didn't answer her. She still barely spoke. Justine continued, "Why do you never talk? You one of them mutes?" Parker still didn't say anything, and it started to annoy the older girl. "Bet if I burned your hair off you'd scream."

"Bet if I stabbed you in the throat you'd choke on your own blood before you could," Parker answered, her facial expression still unchanged, her voice steady and even, almost monotone. She just didn't care.

Parker expected the girl to get mad, try to fight her or something, but instead a smile crept across her face. Surprisingly enough, after that interaction, Parker had made her first friend. After twelve years, she had finally made a friend. Well, as close to one as she's ever had, anyway. She had someone to spend time with at least.

"What is all this junk?" Justine asked her one day while she rummaged through a box in the very bottom of Parker's closet. She took out a plastic watch, some bangle bracelets, a couple crayons, a toothbrush, and a little wind up toy that must have been from a McDonalds happy meal from about two years ago. Justine wound it up, watched it go, then looked back at Parker confused.

"Stuff," Parker answered simply. She shifted on her bed a bit, and her eyes flickered to the doorway. Routine checks were soon. She didn't like all the little nurses that would come in there and talk to them like they were five years old.

"Half this shit is banned, stuff we can off ourselves with, ya know?" she smirked and picked up a bangle bracelet and mimics breaking it and stabbing herself in the throat with it. She giggled. Parker wasn't exactly sure what was funny about that, but cracked a smile, just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

"I know."

"So where did you get them?" Justine asked her, putting the stuff back in the box. She slid it back under Parker's pile of dirty clothes, where she hid them.

"Stole them," Parker tells her, her eyes still on the door. She said it so simply that it made Justine turn around and look at her.

"From where?"

Parker shrugged, "The locked room, where they keep all our stuff." She didn't understand why Justine was looking at her like that, like she couldn't believe that she did that. It wasn't like it was hard or anything.

"Seriously? You can get in there? Is this your stuff?" she asked, getting off of the floor and crossing over to the bed to sit opposite of Parker. But Parker didn't look at her; she was looking at the door. Just as she knew it was coming, it opened, and nurse poked her head in.

"Playing nice, girls?" she asked in an overly cheery voice. Parker just stared blankly at her. She hated being addressed to like a child.

"Always," Justine said, giving her the fakest smile Parker thinks she's ever seen anyone give another person ever, before the nurse closed the door again. Justine turned back to her, "Can you get me in there? I want some of my stuff."

Parker shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Later." She did want to see what Justine had though, if she was to be honest. She hadn't gotten to her box yet. Parker didn't have anything, so she took things from other people's boxes. Just small things, meaningless things she didn't think they would miss. But she wanted them. She just wanted _something_ for herself. Something that was hers.

"Cool," Justine said, and smiled. She looked at Parker, and Parker looked back at her. Her expression barely ever changed, and while it used to unnerve Justine a little, she had started to get used to it. She laid back on Parker's bed and looked at the ceiling. "I've always thought it'd be cool to be a thief. You know, if I ever get out of here. Probably be in here for the rest of my life… either that or jail. Fuck it," Justine rolled over on her stomach and looked up at Parker. She smiled a bit, "Always kinda wanted to find me a man and roam around robbin' banks, shootin' pigs… be like Bonnie and Clyde."

"Who's that?" Parker asked, and Justine's eyes went wide. She sat up straight.

"You've never heard of Bonnie and Clyde? Are you serious?" She was looking at Parker like she was crazy for not knowing who these two random people were. Parker just shook her head.

Justine smiled and leaned again the wall. "Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow… they were in love, ya know? Like serious, amazing, outlaw, exciting,_ legendary_ love… and they were great thieves. Stole so much damn money before they ended up being shot and killed back in the 30s. But it was all… so romantic, ya know? Roaming around… gettin' rich… duckin' the law…" Justine smiled again, sighing a bit.

"Parker…" Parker repeated, though that wasn't her name back then. She thought about it for a minute. She liked the sound of it.

"Yeah, Bonnie Parker. I wanna be like her," Justine said, but then shrugged, looking disgruntled. "But I ain't ever getting out of here. You might, they still haven't convicted you, right? No proof? Me… well I'm fucked."

"I like the name Parker," Parker said, for the most part ignoring what Justine was saying. She was always talking about how she was never going to leave; it had started to bore her. Parker didn't care if she ever left or not, it wasn't her problem. But she was right, about Parker never being convicted. After two years they still couldn't find solid proof that she was the one that had ignited her foster home, and without an actual confession, they had nothing.

"Like, _just _Parker? That's a guy's name. Least, when it's used as a first."

"I like it, I think I want it," Parker replied, and made a mental note to read more on this Bonnie Parker when she could finally get out of that padded prison. It sounded… interesting. Her story. Her and Clyde's story, and she wanted to know more.

"You some kind of lesbo or somethin'? Wantin' a guys name…" Justine asked, and laughed a bit. But she stopped when Parker just shrugged; realizing Parker wasn't in on the joke with her.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Justine asked her, now serious. Parker just shrugged again. "It's kinda simple, you either like boys or you like girls."

"What if I don't like anyone?" Parker asked her, because she hadn't. Ever. She knows by now she probably should like a boy, any boy, but after what had happened to her a couple years before that she didn't want to get near any of them, which made it hard for her to ever get close enough to like one. But she didn't like girls either. Not because she was kind of weary about them like boys, but because she just had never met one and got that feeling that she's read about before.

Justine just shrugged, "Then you don't, I guess. I don't know, maybe you're one of those people that aren't sexually attracted to anyone or anything, if that's possible—wait, you're not attracted to animals or something nasty like that are you?"

"What? No!" Parker said, looking at her like she was insane. People were actually attracted to animals? That was all kinds of weird. How could an animal be attractive? Sure she liked cats, a lot actually, even though she's never had one before. They were fuzzy and they made that purring sound she likes, but to actually… Parker just shook her head. Ew.

Justine smirked, "Just checking."

As it turned out, Nate was actually meeting a client earlier that day. So that's how they ended up in a veterinary hospital, one of the largest in Boston, who's owner was stealing from it's employees paychecks, claiming the cut backs was so he could use the funds for a another shelter wing of the hospital. Many of the employees were happy to help out, knowing with the tough economic times that expansion would be hard. But they all love the animals, wanting to save more than they were ever able to, and expanding another wing would make that dream closer to possible.

But after months of excuses and no action, they've stared to become suspicious. And with the startling revelation that the hospital would be closed soon due to non funding, and the owner conveniently about to take a vacation, the team had to swoop in and try to find out where he was hiding the money, and how to help the hospital from closing down.

"Aww, he's so cute!" Parker said to Hardison as she was browsing the animal shelter part of the hospital. They were both to pretend to be customers, but neither of them had an animal, so that was the first step. Parker offered to bring her stuffed bunny in, but Hardison had to remind her that it had to be a _real _animal. He seemed surprised by how much that one statement had offended the girl. But Bunny was her best friend, and to imply that he wasn't real was just _rude_.

"She," Hardison corrects, but Parker isn't listening. She's picking up the kitten, and holding it up to her face, rubbing her nose against the tiny animal's. It was so small, almost too small, but as she glanced over at Hardison she saw him smile a bit at the little orange thing and Parker decided she must have this one. A little tiny thing that she could take care of all by herself. She was excited.

The tiny thing let out a small pitiful meow, and Parker lets out another, "Aww…" and brings the animal to her chest, curling her arms around it and holding it close. She looked down at it as she rocked it back and forth slowly, almost like if she was holding a baby. The tiny cat opened it's mouth and let out a big yawn before it closed it's eyes. Parker thinks her heart just melted, if that was even possible. She never thought it was, but the feeling she had resembled her heart trickling down into her stomach.

"Mine," she told Hardison, and Hardison tried to remind her that they were supposed to give the kitten back after the con, but Parker just waved her hand at him and shushed him as she sat down on the bench and rocked her new baby, leaving Hardison to go pay for the animal with a bit of a sigh. She knew what they were supposed to do, but she didn't want to. This cat was hers now. All hers.

They had an appointment for a check up the next day, which would be when Parker would sneak out and start snooping, leaving Hardison to watch the animal in the exam room. But they were back in Parker's apartment now, Parker having forgotten about the thing Hardison wanted to show her due to being completely taken with her new little friend.

Hardison just watched her with a little smile on his face as she took her shoelace out of her favorite pair of sneakers and started dangling it in front of the kittens face, giggling each time when she caught it. "What are you going to name her?" Hardison asks, and Parker shrugs.

She had been thinking about that the whole way home, but really wasn't sure. But then, just out of nowhere, she knew. "I'm gonna name him Clyde," she tells him, and Hardison makes a face.

"_Her_, Parker. It's a girl."

"Clyde," Parker repeats again, sure of herself. After all, she named herself after Bonnie Parker. And even though she didn't love her cat like Bonnie loved Clyde, she did love him… her. Whichever. She's never loved a single thing or a single person before outside of her mother, and this was also a different kind of love than that was, but even though it was different she knew what it was. She wanted to take care of her, feed her, play with her, and have her grow up well. She loved her. And even if it's not the same kind of love, it was still love.

"Why Clyde?" Hardison asks, but Parker doesn't want to tell him. She thinks he'll make fun of her, or maybe just not understand. So she just shrugs as she starts making the string move along the ground, smiling as she watches Clyde try to catch it. She wonders if she could teach her tricks, have her learn to pick locks or something. That would be awesome.

"Just because," she says, and Hardison lets it go. There's silence for a little while before Parker remembered Hardison said he looked something up for her. Her curiosity peaked again; she peered over at him and asked, "What did you want to show me?"

Hardison nodded toward the door, "It's in my apartment. Do you wanna…?" he asked, though started to get up already because he knew Parker wouldn't ask unless she was curious. But Parker picked up her cat off the floor carefully and asked:

"Can Clyde come too?"

She didn't want to go unless Clyde could come. She didn't want to be alone from him… her. Clyde was too tiny, and could run into little crevices into the wall or get stuck behind the fridge or something else as equally as horrifying and Parker wanted to protect her. She wrapped the tiny kitten up in her arms and looked up at Hardison with wide eyes as she waited for his answer.

Hardison smirked a little out of the corner of his mouth and said, "Yeah, sure. Bring her along." Parker smiled wide and picked herself off the floor, bouncing a bit as she got up, which annoyed Clyde a little so she kissed her on the top of her head and apologized with a "Sorry!"

As the two walked out of Parker's apartment and down the hall, Parker clutching Clyde close in case she tried to run away, she wondered what it was Hardison needed to show her. But not only that, she also wondered what color collar she was going to get Clyde, and if she should get her one of those little cat beds too. And maybe, _maybe_ even a little toy ball with one of those bells in it. Parker liked bells, and she was sure Clyde would too.

**TBC…**


	6. First Kiss

**A/N: Thanks everyone for reviewing and taking an interest in this story. It's a bit new for me, since I mainly write Parker/Sophie and that pairing is highly, _highly_** **underappreciated most of the time lol.** **My poor OTP xD**

**CHAPTER SIX  
First Kiss**

"You're leavin'?"

Parker looked up from packing her bags and caught sight of Justine who was standing in her doorway, arms folded into herself and looking down at the shoes. Parker had never seen her that way, looking anywhere close to the emotion of upset. Anger she's seen loads of times on her. Justine wore anger like Mr. Roger's always wore a tie.

"Yeah, in couple hours," Parker told her, turning away from her and stuffing some of her clothes into her duffle. She didn't want to go to another foster home, but she didn't want to stay in the hospital either. She had been in there for three years and two months now, and she was done with barely ever seeing the light of day. She vowed to herself that she would never be locked up again.

"Oh," Justine replied, and closed the door behind her before crossing the room to sit down on Parker's bed. She just looked at her, so Parker stopped backing to look back. She didn't understand what this was; she's never experienced it before. She thinks it might be the feeling when you start to miss someone, but she hadn't left yet so that didn't make much sense.

"Are we going to hug awkwardly now or something?" Parker asked her, because she wanted to know. But Justine just laughed.

"Probably a bit too mushy," she told her, and Parker nods before letting out a little sigh and sitting on the bed next to her. Justine was her first friend, her only friend, and she didn't realize how much it was going to suck to leave her there until just now. They had become close over the last year, really close in fact. They spent all their time together. But then again, there wasn't much else to do in the hospital.

Justine put her hand over Parker's that was lying on the bed and Parker looked down at them and then back up at her. Justine had never touched her like that before, but it made her smile a little before she turned her hand around to hold the other girls. She was going to miss her, she realized that now. She was going to miss her a lot.

But it was Justine who voiced it outloud first. "I'm gonna miss you," she said, barely above a whisper, then coughed at how awkward and mushy that sounded and shook her head. "Ya know, cause you're pretty chill. Bit weird but… chill."

"Maybe when you get out we can hang out," Parker told her, but Justine just laughed and squeezed her hand that she was holding.

"I ain't ever gettin' outta here, sweetheart."

Parker knew that, but she didn't want it to be true. She didn't want this to be the last time she ever saw her friend. She didn't think she'd ever really have another one again. Everyone else thought she was weird. But Justine was a little weird too, and a lot crazy, so she accepted her. Unless Parker ever finds another dysfunctional person, she doubts she'll ever have something like this again. She didn't like that. She liked… this. Right here.

"I'll try to get you out," Parker promised, deciding something then. But Justine just smirked and looked at her like that was impossible.

"And how are ya gonna do that?"

Parker shrugged, but looked at her seriously. "I'll find a way," she told her, and Justine smiled a bit at her, she had to, even though she doubted she could. There was silence between them for a moment before Parker told her, "I have to finish packing."

Justine helped her pack up the rest of her things, and then they both lay on the bed together, side by side, and just stared at the ceiling. Parker pointed to a water stain and said, "That kind of looks like Abraham Lincoln." Justine snorted when she laughed and turned her head to the side to look at it.

"How do you figure?"

"Look," Parker said, pointing at the stain and tracing her finger in the air. "See, that's his top hat right there." Justine just laughed and rolled over a bit to lay her head on Parker's shoulder. Parker blinked and looked down as Justine laced their fingers together again. Parker wasn't exactly sure what she was doing because in the entire year that she was there Justine had never touched her like this. Not this much. Not this… closely.

"Why do you keep holding my hand?" Parker asked her, because she needed to know. She liked it, but she didn't understand why she was doing it. No one had ever done that with her before that day. She knew what it usually meant, but Justine was always on about 'lesbos' and stuff that she didn't think she liked them, let alone was one of them.

"I… I just…" Justine started, thrown off for the first time due to Parker's bluntness. She got embarrassed and let go of her hand and rolled off of her. "I was just… comfortable. That's it." She didn't look at Parker, instead chose to train her eyes on the water stain.

"Oh," Parker said, though was still confused. "So you don't like me or anything?" Parker wasn't sure what she wanted to answer to that question to be. She's never had anyone like her before, she's sure it would be nice, even if it was a girl. Boys scared her a little bit now anyway, after… everything.

"What? No," Justine said quickly, and let out an overdramatized scoff. "No, of course not. That'd be fucking weird." Parker wasn't sure if she believed her, but after that the two of them fell silent for a little while, before bringing the topic of conversation to other subjects.

After a couple hours, a nurse came in and told her that her new foster parents were here to pick her up. After the door closed, the two girls untangled themselves from each other, having somehow gotten closer and closer to each other during their mindless chatter to have gotten in a position near close to cuddling. Parker picked up her back, both girls just looking at each other silently. Parker hated this feeling. It was like her stomach had dropped a couple inches and it was making her sick.

"Well… I'll… see you," Parker said kind of awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. She turned and started to head towards the door, feeling awful. But when she put her hand on the doorknob, Justine said, "Wait!" and walked quickly over to her, putting a hand on her arm and turning her around to face her quickly.

Then Justine's lips were on hers, and Parker's eyes closed automatically. She dropped her bag to the floor, her arms coming up to wrap around Justine's neck. She's seen couples do it in movies when they kiss, and now she knows why. She wanted to get her closer to her.

It was only a quick kiss, just a press of the lips that lingered for a little longer than it probably should have. When it was over Justine stepped back, looking a bit like she didn't know why she just did that. Parker blinked a couple times, just trying to replay that in her head: her first kiss. It was really nice… she really liked it. But now it made leaving suck so much more.

Justine tucked a piece of chestnut hair behind her ear and looked down, biting her lower lip hard before asking, "You promise you'll come back?"

Parker looked at her and nodded, sure of herself. She picked up her bag from off the floor and replied, "Yeah. Promise."

And Parker did, only it was four years later.

"What is it?" Parker asked Hardison as they got into his apartment and she settled herself onto his couch, finally letting Clyde go. The tiny cat wandered out of her arms and started to explore the couch a little bit, before deciding it's surroundings was too big so it scurried back into Parker's lap and curled it's self into a ball against her thigh. Parker giggled and patted her head.

"Patience," Hardison chides her, but had a hint of a smirk on his lips. Parker thinks that he might like her impatience… just a little bit. Parker also is starting to think that he may like her… just a little bit, too. Well, okay, if she was to be honest with herself, she_ knows_ he does. She's not entirely slow. But if she continues to be honest with herself… it scares her. She's never been with a man before, at least willingly. And she likes Hardison, she does. He's nice and makes her laugh and let's her draw pictures on his arm when he's spotty. But she's just… scared. So instead, she chooses to pretend to be oblivious.

Parker makes a sound of annoyance at the word, since she doesn't have any, but stays silent and just watches him as he gathers up some papers and brings them over to her. He sits down next to her on the couch as she pets Clyde and says, "Now don't be mad at me."

Oh, Parker doesn't like that. That means Hardison did something she isn't going to like. Why would he do something like that?

"What?" she asks, and makes a grab at the stack of papers but he holds them away from her. She tries again, annoyed now, but he won't let her have them. "Hardison, show me," she says.

"Hold on, hold on," Hardison says as he holds the papers out of her reach. She could just get up and take them from her, but Clyde was now fast asleep on her thigh and she didn't want to wake him. So she just sits and waits. "So, after you told me your mom's name I kinda… looked for her."

"What?" Parker asks, and just blinks at him. She doesn't know how she feels about that. Kind of mad that Hardison pried into her life, but at the same time also curious. So she just stared at him, showing now emotion on the subject, so Hardison continued.

"And, well, Roma ain't the most common name so I got hits on a couple matches that could… well that could be her. Pictures and stuff, three of these women kinda look like you and are the right age. One's in LA with a husband and two kids that are a bit younger than you," he hands her the file, but Parker doesn't even look at it. She knows it's not her mom. Her mom isn't normal enough for that. "Another's in jail in Ohio, possession with intent to sell charges." He hands her that one and she looks it over, but it wasn't her last name so she looks at him for the third one. Hardison knows this one might be it so he coughs and says, "And uh, this one… Roma Phillips, she's been locked in a psychiatric ward for the last twenty years in New York."

Parker grabs for the file. She already knows it's her mom. They had grown up in New York, a little suburb of Brooklyn, and Phillips was her last name. She stares at the picture, not believing what she's seeing. Her mother looked so old, so unhappy, and it looked more like a mug shot than a picture for a patient file. Her tiny fingers traced her mothers face, looking at her slightly grayed blonde hair. Even though she was old now, her mother was still the most beautiful woman she's ever seen. She was still a Queen.

Hardison's quiet for a little while as Parker just stares at her mother's picture. Then he asks, almost as if he doesn't want to know the answer. "You mad?"

"A little," Parker says, but it didn't come out like she meant it. She was, she had to be, just a little anyway. Hardison pried into her life and came out knowing more about her than she ever wanted anyone to know. But at the same time… it was her mom. It was her mom, right there, in that picture. She had a picture of her mom now. She wanted to frame it and keep it by her bed, even though it was just a little photocopy. She didn't care though. It was her mom.

"Sorry," Hardison apologizes. "Just thought… you know, that you'd wanna… know. Where she is and stuff." Parker looks up from the photo at Hardison, who does look like he feels really bad for prying into her life. But she knows he did it for her, so she isn't really that mad. She just doesn't want anyone else knowing.

"Don't tell the others," she requests, and he nods.

"Our secret," he says, and Parker smiles. She likes having a secret with Hardison. She knows she can trust Hardison with a secret. Hardison was her only other real friend after Justine, and she hasn't seen her in years.

But then again, Justine ended up being more than a friend. So if Hardison was like Justine, wouldn't that mean…?

No, Parker didn't want to think about it. It was still scary. Well, not so much because of Hardison being a guy, but because she's never been with one before. Any guy. Ever. And it wasn't like she considered herself a lesbian. She wasn't, she did think she liked boys, even though she never liked one specifically before Hardison. She was just weary of them all, as a whole. So even though she had only ever slept with women, that didn't make her a lesbian.

She knows that's that definition, but she's been meaning to change that in her dictionary at home anyway. Just like how she changed the word 'bunny' to mean 'the best friend in the whole world,' and 'grumpy' to mean 'Eliot'. She liked changing the dictionary. It was fun.

But she wasn't a lesbian. She liked boys… Hardison. She liked Hardison.

Oh my god, she liked Hardison.

"I'm not a lesbian," came out of Parker's mouth before she could stop it, just shocked into her own revelation. She slaps her hand on her forehead though after that, realizing she just burst that little bit of information out of her mouth. Vocally. As in…

"What?" Hardison asks, thoroughly confused now. As in, Hardison just heard her say that. She really hated it when things didn't just stay in there. She thought once about wearing a ball gag, just to stop the constant word vomit, but the last time she did that people looked at her funny. "How did we get there?"

"We didn't," Parker says quickly, wishing she could build a time machine and get it in and fly backwards in time to five minutes prior to this. "I was just saying," she finishes lamely, knowing that didn't fix it. But she tried.

"How did we get from your mother to lesbians?" Hardison asks, and then his eyes go wide. "Ohh… is she…?"

"No," Parker says, then shakes her head. She scrunches her face up a bit in thought and finishes, "At least, I don't think so." Then again, maybe she was and her mother was right. Maybe she _did_ have Parker through some miracle conception.

Wow. Okay, that was pretty cool to think about. Maybe she was like baby Jesus only… a girl. And… a thief. And she didn't perform miracles. She believes Jesus go the better end of that deal. It isn't fair.

"So then why…?"

"Nothing," Parker said, getting out of her thoughts and back into reality. Her face was starting to get hot, and she realized this was embarrassment. She hasn't had that in a really long time. She didn't like the feeling, so she picks up Clyde and says, "I have to go. Clyde's hungry."

"Uh, okay," Hardison replies, looking at her like he wasn't sure what to make of her little outburst and weirder than normal behavior. But he let it go, which Parker was glad for as she left his apartment quickly, practically running down the hall to her own.

She leaned against the door after she closed it and put down Clyde on the floor to let him do more exploring. She took a deep breath and stared out the window on the opposite side of the room, replaying what just happened over and over again. Why does she _do_ that? She wishes she could stop.

But even though she feels stupid, she can't help but think that she wants her first real kiss with a boy to be with Hardison. But she just… doesn't know how to go about doing that.

Then she remembers she left the picture of her mother at Hardison's. She wants it… but she's a little afraid to go back. She didn't know how to act normal around Hardison now that she knows she likes him. But then again, acting normal was never one of her strong suits anyway.

**TBC… **


	7. Virginity

**A/N: I apologize for not updating in the last... what has it been? A week and a half maybe? Anyway, I've been having a pretty hectic real life so I'm trying, but updates won't be as frequent. I promise I won't leave you guys hanging though :)**

**CHAPTER SEVEN  
Virginity**

"This your place?" Justine asked as she walked in the door behind Parker, who made sure to close it, bolt it, and check the windows to see if anyone had followed them, even though she was sure they got away unnoticed. "Wicked."

But Parker wasn't paying attention, she had the curtain pulled back slightly as she peered down at the street, watching the people and cars come and go. When she didn't notice anyone particularly hanging out in the area, she finally closed the curtain and turned to look at her friend. Her friend that she hadn't seen in almost four years.

Justine was delicately running her finger in the air down a painting that hung on the living room wall. "Looks expensive," she noted, and Parker scoffed.

"I wouldn't spend my money on art. That came with the apartment," she tells her and walks over to her and points at the painting. "Besides, do you see the brush strokes? Complete fake. Not even a good replica."

Justine smirked and turned her head to look at the blonde. "For someone who don't like art, ya seem to know a lot about it." Parker just shrugged and pursed her lips, not knowing how much she wanted to let Justine in on.

The last four years of her life had been… eventful. Her last foster home wasn't bad, it honestly wasn't. Her foster parents put her in therapy and also enrolled her in gymnastics to give her something to do, a way to socialize and gain a sense of accomplishment, or so they said. Parker was surprised at how naturally it came to her, but while she enjoyed it, she didn't want to go on to be this world-class gymnast or whatever it was that she was supposed to be striving towards. It just didn't give her a sense of real accomplishment, probably only due to how damn _easy_ it came to her. It never felt like she learned anything new, just was shown how her body can move if she would only allow it.

School was fine, but it bored her. She didn't care about physics or calculus or anything like that. So she continued to read, continued to study in her own areas of interest… and then she met Jake. That's when she dropped out of school, ran away from her foster home, and decided to purse a new path in life, one that was fun, exciting, and finally did give her that sense of accomplishment that she needed.

She met Jake the day he lifted her wallet. Instead of screaming for the police, or screaming at him, she decided to follow him. Her natural curiosity with learning probably would have gotten her killed if it was with anyone else. But it made her watch him do it to a couple other people until she followed him on the subway and lifted her own wallet _back _from him. It was a proud moment for her, and as she smirked and got off of the subway at the next stop she was happy she learned something new, even though she was surprised she got away with it on her first try.

But she didn't. Jake followed her, and when he cornered her in an alley her first instinct was to grab something heavy and attack him if he tried anything. Being helpless and out of control is her biggest fear, and she refused to ever become a victim again… but instead he just smiled and introduced himself.

It wasn't a boy meets girl story or anything like that. Over the last two years Jake had become more like an older brother to Parker more than anything else. It wasn't like she immediately trusted him, but she immediately related to him. He was homeless for a long time, which while she was not, she knew all about abandonment. She had a roof over her head and clothes on her body and food on her plate and yet she always felt empty and alone. She never felt like she really belonged anywhere until she met Jake and his friends.

Jake taught her how to steal, he taught her how to fight, he taught her how to take care of herself like he was now. He was picking pockets by ten and breaking into banks at seventeen, her age now, in this moment. She was fifteen when she met him, and he was twenty. It probably sounds like the start of a bad pedo story, but it wasn't like that at all. Parker remembers asking him months later after they first met why he was still picking pockets when he could break into a bank. He told her it reminded him of the old days.

That's probably why she still has Bunny. Memories.

He knew a guy, a really good tech guy who when she ran away wiped away almost all traces of who she was… for a very hefty fee. She only became the new her a couple months ago, having to steal enough money herself to do it. Jake wouldn't let her near the banks until six or so months ago, forcing her to do heists on convenience stores and other juvenile crap that she hated. But at the same time she respected it, because you can't just jump right into the deep end and expect to swim. But to live this lifestyle, to be as good at it as she naturally was, but yet still having so much to learn, it wasn't smart to have a real identity. So when the day finally came, and Jake stood next to her as they waited for the last of her old life to be erased, he asked her what she wanted to go by now. She told him:

"Parker. Just Parker."

He didn't ask why, but that was why Parker liked Jake. He never questioned her reasoning's, never questioned her decisions unless he had an alternative route to offer that might possibly be better than the one she suggested. For being her teacher, they were still almost like equals, and that's why she needed to save him. That's why she broke Justine out of the mental hospital… she needed the practice to get Jake out of jail.

But of course, there were other reasons behind that too.

Justine looked towards the window, but she wasn't looking out it. The curtains blocked her view to the outside world and Parker just thinks she needs to look away from her for a minute, for whatever reason. She watches Justine chew on her bottom lip a bit and shuffle her feet uncomfortable for a moment before resting her back against the wall. Parker just watches her, not knowing what to say. What were you supposed to say when things like this happened? She had never read anything that came close to this situation before, and she hated not knowing. She hated not being able to learn something from a book.

"I can't believe ya actually came back for me, A—"

"Parker," Parker interrupted her quickly, not wanting to hear that name again. Justine turned her head to look at her quizzically and Parker just said, "That's my name now. Parker."

Justine just stared at her for a moment before a smirk curled at the corners of her lips, "Like Bonnie, huh?" Parker couldn't stop the smile that formed on her face no matter how hard she tried to stop it, and it made Justine smile back. "Figured." She crossed her arms across her chest and let out a small breath before looking out at the curtain again. Parker wished she would stop doing that, because she doesn't know what it means. Maybe that she just likes her curtains, but she doubted that was it. They really weren't all that pretty.

"I wanted to make sure I could before I did," Parker told her, and chose to lean against the wall next to her. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the curtain, mimicking her. Trying to figure out what was so special about the curtain.

She left out the part that she did it now because she had to get Jake out of jail. Something in her told her she probably shouldn't tell her that. She would have come to get her eventually, but probably not this soon if it wasn't for the whole Jake situation.

"I can't believe ya got me out of there without security catchin' on," Justine said, and smiled a bit. She looked over at her again, and Parker looked back. "You're kinda like a ninja or somethin' now. Bit hot."

Parker smirked, but didn't say anything. Being a ninja sounded cooler than being a thief, even though she knew Justine would probably be the last to care what she really was. She'd probably even be impressed. But she didn't want to just… say what was going on. She hadn't seen her in four years, and while she seemed the same, only she was a couple inches taller with a bit more breasts, Parker couldn't really be sure if she was really the same girl… because she wasn't anymore.

They just hung around the living room that night, watched movies and talked. They laughed, which Parker hadn't been able to do since Jake went to jail, and it felt really good to be around someone again. And it felt even better to be around someone she actually counted as a friend, because she didn't have many of those. They were drinking, just because Justine hadn't ever tried it because she was stuck in that place almost all of her life, and she seemed to be effected more by the liquor than Parker was for some reason, even though Parker rarely drank either.

"I thought you'd have more boobs," Justine told her and snorted as she laughed, topping over onto Parker on the couch, holding the bottle of vodka in her hand. "Cause you're so pretty, ya know? And I thought you'd be like a Barbie," she giggled again.

"Barbie doesn't have nipples," Parker tells her, because she doesn't, and therefore doesn't understand how anyone can ever really have boobs like Barbie, but that just makes Justine laugh more. Parker giggles just because Justine was laughing and takes the bottle away from her to have another sip.

"Hey!" Justine protests and reaches her hand up for it as she turns herself half around to face Parker, but once she looks at her she just lets her hand fall to rest on the thief's shoulder. Parker suddenly felt like the room was getting really hot all of a sudden just by the way Justine was looking at her without saying anything, and she wasn't sure if she should go turn up the AC or if this was something she experienced briefly at thirteen with this girl.

She has never kissed another person after her. Not a single one, ever. She just never became close to another person outside of Jake, and he was like a brother. And while she felt more like a woman than she ever had before in her life now, in this moment she felt so much like a child again. She was nervous, and she didn't get nervous. Not anymore, anyway. She can break into a secure vault and barely break a sweat, but this? She couldn't remember how to deal with this, if she ever dealt with it before.

If there even was a this. Maybe she was reading too much into whatever was going on. If anything was actually going on, and Justine wasn't just staring at a pimple on her face or something.

Was there a pimple on her face?

"Is there a—?" Parker starts to ask, needing to know, but she's interrupted by Justine.

"Shut up."

And then there are lips against hers, and Parker is pretty sure she's supposed to know what to do but yet can't think, which made it fortunate that apparently her lips weren't attached to her brain in any way and moved on their own accord. So Parker decided thinking probably wasn't the best route to go in a situation like this and just let her body do what came naturally, but when Justine pushed her flat on her back and climbed on top of her, letting her lips fall to her neck as her hands wandered up Parker's shirt, Parker put her hands on Justine's shoulder and pushed her back a little.

"I dunno, I've never—"

But then Justine looked down at her, breathing a bit heavy. She pushed her hair behind her face and laughed. "What do you mean, 'you've never?' You're seriously still a virgin?" She laughed again, and Parker crinkled her face.

"No," she lied. She didn't know why she lied, but it probably had something to do with the way Justine was laughing. Like it was unheard of for someone at seventeen to be a virgin.

"Then what are you—?" Justine started to say, but it was Parker's turn to interrupt her.

"Just on the couch," Parker said, trying to think of something. It sounded really stupid in her head, but she didn't care. She just needed to cover it with something. "The bed's better," she finished. She mustered all of the courage inside of her, deciding she was going to do this now, since it apparently weird that she never had before. So she took Justine's hand, got up, and started dragging her towards her room. "So come on."

And that's how Parker lost her virginity, with a lie.

So as Parker stood leaning against her door, still thinking about how scary it is that she likes Hardison, she couldn't help but feel like a virgin all over again. While she had never been with that many people, she did know what she was doing with women now at least. But Hardison was a man, a man that liked her, and a man that she liked. So if she told him she liked him then eventually they would have to get naked with each other and Parker had no idea what she was supposed to do in that situation… and it scared her. It made her feel like a child again.

So Parker decided she would get the picture of her mother later, and probably never tell Hardison that she liked him. Ever. Because she knew if she did, she'd have to lie to him, and she didn't want to do that.

But she also didn't want to tell him the truth either.

**TBC…**


	8. Road Trip

**CHAPTER EIGHT  
Road Trip**

"Parker, what are you doing?!" Nate hisses at her over her com. "You look like you just ate a beehive, you're supposed to be a happy couple, _now smile!"_

Parker grimaces, it's as close as she can get to a smile at the moment. It wasn't like this was hard. No, she just had to walk in with Hardison, into the vets office, and while Hardison is busy getting Clyde checked out then she needed to go snooping. How hard is that? That's simple, right?

Wrong.

She's holding Hardison's hand. His _hand._ Parker knows that shouldn't be anything, but she's getting these little tingles that are climbing all the way up her arm and back down again, and they kind of tickle. She wants to laugh, but she also feels so close to throwing up that she doesn't want to open her mouth in case of projectile ickyness. And what if she threw up on Clyde, and then he drowned in her… she doesn't want to think about that. The last thing she at was Chinese food, and that's bound to have some consequences. Nasty, horrible consequences that involve noodles and her kitten.

"What's wrong with you?" Hardison hisses to her out of the corner of his mouth as they approach the desk.

Parker doesn't answer, she still feels like she might throw up and laugh at the same time, and that could end up looking slightly awkward, even for her. Instead she just clutches onto Clyde and comes up to the desk with Hardison, who's supposed to be her _boyfriend_, and tries the smile thing again. But the lady the desk just looks at her funny, so she's pretty sure it didn't come out the way she wanted it to.

Parker doesn't say anything, and Hardison just stares at her before clearing his throat and telling the desk lady, "Uh, right…" he looks back at the lady and smiles, and Parker wishes she could do that right now. "We have an appointment for a check up."

"Last name?" the woman asks, but is still looking at Parker oddly. Parker wishes she had eyes that could come out of her skull and turn around so she could see what she looked like right then, but then that sounded kind of weird and realizes she could have just wished for a mirror. She's sure if her eyes came out of her skull it would make people look at her even more. Probably make them scream and stuff.

"Tyler. Rose, and her kitten Clyde. And I'm John Smith," Hardison replies, with a smile, and a little nudge at Parker and a wink at the receptionist to sell the part, "She's my girl."

The woman checks her appointment book and looks back up with a smile, but this time she was looking at Hardison. Parker is sure no one would smile while looking at her; she thinks she has this non-smile disease now or something. Now everytime someone looks at her they just… "The doctor will see you shortly, you can have a seat."

Parker is torn away from her thoughts as she feels a tugging on her arm, and Hardison pulls her over to two chairs. He has to pull her down into a seat as well, since she didn't seem to be moving quite right. She was thinking too much, she can never really move right when she thinks. She wonders if other people are like that.

"You know where that's from?" Hardison asks her with a bit of a grin, trying to get things normal even though he knows something's wrong with Parker. Parker doesn't look at him, just chooses to look down at Clyde.

"What?" Parker asks, and slides her hand out of his and uses it instead to pet her kitten. She didn't want the tingles, and the laughs, and the throwing up feeling. She was hoping it would go away when she let go of his hand, but it only dulled.

"Oh come on, I've made you watch enough Doctor Who with me to know _that_," Hardison tells her, but Parker is just silent and pets her kitty. She doesn't know what she's going to do now. She thought if she just suppressed everything, pretend it never happened, even though nothing really did happen besides her realizing all that stuff, then maybe it would just go away. But it wasn't going away.

She wants it to go away.

"Parker, are you okay?" Hardison asks her, more softly this time, and he puts his hand on her arm.

Parker moves herself away from him, only a little, but enough to be away. "Rose Tyler was a companion," Parker tells him, just wanting to change the topic. She doesn't look at him, just pets Clyde. "And John Smith is a name the Doctor sometimes uses… human name. When he was all… human and stuff, that time."

"Parker?" Hardison asks, and now worry was seeping into his voice. Parker doesn't want that, she just wants to talk about Doctor Who now. Or at least anything other than him asking her what's wrong, because she can't tell him.

So she keeps talking about Doctor Who. "And his worst enemy is the Daleks, they killed his people in that… war of time, timeless war… timely war? Something. And then after Rose he had Martha, but I liked Rose better. She was blonde, like me. Do you think Cybermen could be real? I mean like with the alternate universe do you think they could come in and kill us all cause of—"

"Parker, why are you talking about Doctor Who?" Hardison asks her, and is now looking at her strangely. "You never seemed to…" but then Hardison trails off, and then smirks. "Actually I'm surprised you could remember all that. Kinda feel like I corrupted you… did I corrupt you?" But then there's a pause, and a, "Wait…" as he realizes that Parker must be spouting off Doctor Who facts to not talk about what's really bothering her, but then thankfully Parker was saved.

"Ms. Tyler and… Clyde is it?" The doctor says, looking at his charts as he walks up to them, then looks at the couple in front of him. "Well, let's take a look and see if your new little addition to your family is healthy, shall we?"

Parker knows what to do now, and she's up faster than lightning. She hands Hardison the kitten and tries her best to sound normal when saying, "Go on, sweetie. I have to use the bathroom, I'll be in there in a minute." But after both Hardison _and_ the veterinarian look at her funny, she knows that she must have still sounded oddly, but she rushes off in the direction of the bathrooms anyway.

She feels like she's going to throw up still, but knows she doesn't actually have enough time to go in there and do so. So she sneaks her way up the back stairwell and down a few hallways until she finds the office she was looking for. She looks over her shoulder as she picks the lock blindly, and when she hears it click she turns the door handle. She closes it softly behind her and looks around… the office is almost empty, but empty in a way that it looked like whoever emptied it ran out in a hurry.

She furrows her eyebrows and walks over to the computer, the only thing really left in the room. She listens carefully for any signs of footsteps in the distance before she wiggles the mouse and the screen illuminates.

"Parker, what do you see?" Nate asks over the coms.

"He's gone already, all that's left is his computer," Parker tells him and tries to look through the files, but it seems everything is gone. "What's that thing Hardison does to make the trash reappear?"

"Hardison!"

"Pull up the terminal and enter…" Hardison mumbles into his com since he's in the room with the vet, but Parker can't hear the rest of what he's saying.

"What?" she asks, and pulls up the terminal.

Hardison starts spouting off a bunch of random numbers, a little louder this time, but Parker guesses the vet must have heard him because he coughs and explains, "Uh, you know, just trying to remember my phone number… I have very early onset Alzheimer's… very… early…? Right, anyway, is the kitten okay?"

Parker does what he says and finds a bunch of old files. Going through as many as she can as quickly as she can possibly manage it, she thinks it's dumb luck that she actually got on that told her that… "He's gone. Flew out of here a couple hours ago under an assumed name. Stopping off in London before going to Russia."

"What?" Hardison and Nate ask at the same time, in two very different tones. But Hardison has to cover his up with a, "Oh, I thought she was a boy. My girl named him Clyde you see…"

"Hardison! Why didn't we know this?" Nate asks, that angry tone he gets sometimes that Parker doesn't like. But it wasn't in her direction this time, so it wasn't so bad.

"Damnit, Hardison!" comes Eliot's scruffy voice. Parker's sure he probably hit something. He always hits things, it was a valid deduction.

"Why would he want to go to _Russia?_" Parker hears Sophie over the coms, sounding like that would be a stupid place to go, but Parker likes Russia.

"Ugh, nevermind. Hardison, Parker, get out of there. And Hardison when you get back we're going to be needing a flight… _now_," there was a growl in Nate's voice, and Parker can hear Hardison slightly, quietly, mocking the word over the coms.

When they get back, there's a lot of yelling. Parker doesn't like yelling much, so she decides to curl up on Nate's couch next to Sophie, who isn't much for the yelling either. Hardison is on his computer, getting them tickets; while Nate and Eliot look at him, yell at him, like he should have known this already.

"Look, look! Hey!" Hardison exclaims, putting up his hands at them for them to slow down. "There was nothing that showed any red flags when I searched before, and I sure as_ hell_ didn't know he was connected enough to be able to get a fake ID that's good enough not to even put a blip on my radar. Isn't that you're job, Mr. High and Mighty? To find out stuff like that?" Hardison asks, pointing at Nate.

"Just get us the tickets," Nate grumbles, and Eliot glares at now both Hardison and Nate for good measure. Parker thinks maybe if she pets his hair more often he'd learn how to smile more. Clyde certainly smiles when she pets him, or at least as much as a cat is able to. But he was in her house now, alone. She didn't want to bring him here, not with all the yelling and Eliot the Grumpy Dwarf.

She snorts when she laughs, and everyone looks at her. But she couldn't help it; she just realized how funny she can be in her head. Eliot was one of the seven dwarfs.

"Hey, hey, hold on wait a minute," Hardison says, and peers at his computer screen, which makes everyone look away from Parker, who still looks amused. "His flight's been diverted because of the weather, he's in New York until tomorrow night, and that's if this snow lets up."

"Well if there's no flights going out then there's no flights going _in,"_ Nate says, which Parker thinks that's a bit obvious for him to say, but then again Nate likes to think out loud sometimes. "So…"

"Don't say it," Sophie says with a groan, realizing what he's about to vocalize. Parker looks at her, because she has no idea what he's about to propose. If it was up to her, she thinks they should take a hot air balloon, but she doesn't know how well that would bode in the snowstorm. But it would be cool.

"Oh, hell no," Eliot said, putting up his hands. Parker looks at him now, she wants to know what they're talking about!

"Eight hours… yeah, we could do this…" Nate says, still thinking out loud, still pacing a bit back and forth. Finally he stops, stands up straight and looks up at everyone. "Pack your bags everyone, we're going on a road trip."

"This is hell," Eliot says as he's jammed into the back of the car between Parker and Hardison. It had been three hours, and Eliot seems to have been counting the ways he was going to kill Nate in his head the whole time.

"I still say we should've gotten a bigger car," Hardison says, and shoves Eliot a bit as he tries to move away from him. Eliot shoves him back.

"Now guys, I know this isn't the most glamorous thing in the world, but we're five thieves and blending in is important for the next eight hours," Nate tells them, looking through the rear view mirror at the three of them back there. Parker waves and smiles, she seems to be the only one really enjoying this.

"We could have blended in in a _van_," Hardison stresses, and then exclaims, "Ow, Eliot! That was my hand!"

"Well keep it where it's supposed to be then!" Eliot growls, and Parker raises her eyebrows. If that didn't sound like something else, then she didn't know what did.

"Are you two getting touchy-feely?" she asks curiously, because then maybe she's saved if Hardison turns out to be really gay, but with both of them shouting at the top of their lungs, "NO!" her dreams crash.

She was doing a little better, but only a little. She wasn't stuck next to Hardison, because then she's sure she'd probably be throwing up all over Eliot's shoes, which would probably get her killed. She tried to just think about the job, and not about how she wanted to get touchy-feely with Hardison… until she just thought of that and now she's getting hot. She thinks she blushed, but she never does that, so now she was hot and confused. She almost thought the word 'flustered', but then that sounded even more wrong and…

"This is the most common car in the country, that's why we're in it," Nate tells Hardison, which interrupts Parker's thoughts.

"Can we at least have some music?" Sophie asks, and reaches for the dial, but Eliot and Nate said no while Parker and Hardison shouted yes at the same time. "Yes wins," Sophie says with a smile and turns it on. Nate and Eliot glower.

Eight hours was a really long time to get from Boston to New York, and actually ended up being about nine and a half because of the snow, but it wasn't s long if Parker thought about it. Not after all the fun they had, or at least _she _had. Eliot was still angry at her for braiding his hair, but he said yes only to make her stop asking the question twenty times over and over like a CD that was skipping.

They played the license plate game, or at least Parker and Sophie did. By that time, Hardison and Eliot were asleep on each other (which was funny to watch when they woke up and realized it) and Nate was too busy telling them to be quiet because he had a headache… until he said Vermont and gave in.

Parker was glad he gave in. It was the funnest road trip she ever had in her life. But come to think of it, it was the only road trip she ever had in her life.

**TBC…**


	9. New York

**A/N: Uh, yeah I insult strippers a bit in this. But I've been a stripper for three years, so I think I'm allowed. Feel free to yell at me if you're offended though. It's all about perception, and how other people view them.**

**CHAPTER NINE  
New York**

"You two just going to lie around all day like that? Come on, I'm finally out, let's go hit a party or something. Hell, let's _throw_ a party… half a dozen strippers..." the man across from Parker smirked, then noticed Parker's look of disapproval and said, "Sissy, I know you hate hotel parties but… actually, we could go house shopping for one. How much are houses going in New York now?"

Parker lay in Justine's arms, sprawled out on to the couch, her head lying on her breast as Justine ran her fingers through it. Parker liked lying with Justine like this, it made her feel special, even for a little bit. Like her whole body was warm, even though it was cool in the hotel room. "Why do you always want whores?" she asked him. She looked out the hotel window, out at the falling rain drops outside.

New York. She only lived her with her mother, her real mother, so many years ago… but she still remembers it. But it's too close, too damn close to reality and what used to be, so she can't wait to leave it. They weren't going to stay there.

"I said strippers, not _whores_," Jake corrected, and threw a pillow off of his chair at Parker, she squealed and ducked, but it hit Justine in the face.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, and picked it up and threw it back at him. She missed, and Jake smirked.

"You said we were going to go to Europe," Parker reminded him. She was excited about Europe; she had never been there before. Plus, with Jake being wanted for escaping a federal prison, and Parker's face being splashed all over the news as a known accomplice, they needed to leave soon. She didn't want to go to prison; she doesn't think she'd make a good prison bitch. Plus, she's always dropping the soap in the shower cause it's always so slippery… or wait, did that only apply to male prisons?

"Yeah, yeah. I just meant something temporary. Just for the night, you know? Be fun."

"It'd be stupid," Parker corrects, and Jake shrugs. He knows she's right, but Jake always wants to party. Parker's never really been into that, all the people, all the loud music, all the escape routes blocked by drunken half-wits. She liked the money, she loved having it, looking at it, touching it… but Jake liked to spend it. She never really understood why, money was one of the prettiest things she had ever seen in her life. It had potential, unlike strippers.

"Hey," Jake said, and nodded to Justine. Justine looked up from Parker to look at him and he said, "Thanks… for helping her get me."

"I was just the lookout, the girl wouldn't let me anywhere near the joint," Justine replied, and brushed it off.

"Still. San Francisco prisons…"

Justine shrugged again, she wasn't ever really good at platitudes, but neither was Parker. They both talked once about how they find it weird that other people don't get awkward when they get thanked for something, and why they think they might. They never really came to a conclusion. "My girl said she needed ya… ain't nothin' to think about."

"Which…" Jakes said, and leaned back in his chair, his smirk growing larger as he pointed between the two women. Parker rolled her eyes; she already knew what was coming. She's seen the internet. "When did _this _happen, exactly? You never told me you had a thing for the ladies, Sissy…" he made an hourglass shape with his hands. Parker flipped him the finger.

"Don't get all pervy," Parker told him, but couldn't help but smirk too. But then she shrugged and chewed on her bottom lip a bit. "It… just… did. I dunno. Like a couple months ago. There wasn't a sign up sheet or anything." Both Justine and Jake dismiss her sign up sheet comment, even though she's sure both of them don't know what she means. But they know how she is.

Truth was, she didn't know how exactly to explain it. But what she meant was that it wasn't like something came out and was like 'please sign your name on the dotted line if you'd like to be a lesbian now'. It just happened, and it felt good. It felt really, really good, being with Justine. She's never had anyone like her like this before… and it was… good.

"Why do you call her Sissy?" Justine asked as she ran her fingertips lightly down Parker's pale skin. Parker brought her hand up and laced their fingers together. She wanted to close her eyes and just fall asleep, but Jake would have none of that. It was his second night out of prison, and since last night consisted mostly of being on the run, this is their only chance of hanging out before they have to fly to Europe in the morning.

Basically, he'll tell her to sleep on the plane.

"My sister," he said, and pointed at her. Parker smiled. She liked having a sibling, even if he wasn't really her sibling.

"Seriously?"

Jake laughed, "No, not really. Just what I call her."

Parker remembers that night as she's sitting in their hotel room in the middle of New York. She remembers her friend… her friend that died only two years later in a police shoot out. She remembers her girlfriend, her only real girlfriend she's ever had, who left her a year after that because she didn't want to be mixed up in Parker's lifestyle anymore. She remembers New York, she remembers her mother, she remembers it all.

She hates New York.

"You put the tracking on his cell, Parker?"

It's been seven, almost eight years since that conversation, but she still remembers it. There was nothing special about it, and yet she could remember every detail. She remembers the way Justine would look at her, kiss her, touch her. She remembers how Jake would smile, pull her into a bear hug, play fight with her… teach her stuff. She loves them both, even now.

"Parker… the cell phone?"

She visits Jake's grave every year on the date that he died, if she can. Sometimes going back into Rome is a bit risky, even for her. She's wanted all over Italy. Okay, if she's to be fair, she's wanted in about seven different countries, so still. She hasn't seen Justine since she left her, but she knows she's living in Bristol and has a new girlfriend. She wasn't stalking or anything she just... she wanted to know. Maybe people might think that's a little weird, but she wanted to know where the only person she's ever loved like that… where she went, what she's doing.

"Parker! Hello, PARKER!" Someone's snapping their fingers near her ear and she breaks out of her thoughts to look at Nate, who looks disgruntled at being ignored. "Cell phone."

"Yeah, I did," Parker says, and turns back to looking out the window. Nate sighs and walks away from her. She looks back into the darkened sky, watching the snow fall to the ground and she presses her hand up against the cool glass. Sometimes she wishes she could run away, but then she realizes she's been doing that all her life. She'll always be running.

Sometimes she wishes she could go back in time. Change the past, so she doesn't have to run anymore.

"Alright, so. His plane isn't leaving until tomorrow night and the money is in London already," Nate says out loud, to himself again as he paces. After Hardison had run a very complicated looking search on his computer (or at least it looked complicated to Parker, with all the windows and the numbers and whatever else), they had found out he had an accomplice. Well, actually they found that out by accident. When Parker went to put a trace on his phone she had to actually wait to lift it because he was using it already. Hardison traced the call and listened in, and they had found out the money had gone on ahead.

Accomplice was actually a bad word to use. The mark was actually blackmailing this other guy with what apparently were 'very alarming photographs'. Parker didn't understand why the accomplice didn't just run off with the money as soon as he hit London until she found that out. Though she was kind of curious to see what kind of photographs. Considering the man had mentioned a dog, Parker was a bit creeped out but yet at the same time morbidly fascinated. Sophie, however, jumped up and yelled, "That's disgusting!" and proceeded to rattle on about animal rights.

Though Parker isn't sure why she cares about animal rights when she's always wearing fur.

"Hardison, see if there are any flights going out to London in the morning," Nate said, and pointed to the computer before he continued pacing, mumbling a bit to himself.

"But the mark's here," Eliot told him.

"Yeah but the money is in London. Hold on, hold on," Nate said, waving his hands at him. He clearly didn't want to be disturbed while pacing. Parker was watching him through the reflection on the window. His hair was sticking up a little.

"The snows coming down too hard, Nate," Sophie told him, pointing outside. "No way we're going to get out of here early in the morning."

"No, no, wait…" Hardison said, staring at his computer. "There's one cargo flight still scheduled to take off to London before dawn."

"Yeah, a cargo flight that needs to leave during a snow storm? That says smugglers all over it," Eliot told Hardison, like he was being stupid for even suggesting it.

"We have to get there before he does…" Nate said, still mumbling to himself, and Eliot whips around to look at him. Parker stares at his hair when he does that, because it's pretty. Spins around like a dress… on his head.

"I am not going on a plane with _pirates!_" Sophie protests loudly. She even added a little 'hmph!" at the end of extra measure, and a little stomp of her heel.

"Pirates are on boats, in the sea," Parker tells Sophie seriously, but Sophie ignores her. She's too busy staring at Nate like he needed to tell her that there was another way. "They have eye patches and a wooden leg. And a parrot." Then she frowned, and looked at herself in the reflection of the glass. "I miss Clyde."

But no one was paying attention to her, everyone was staring at Nate. "Then we'll have to delay him from getting on his flight… and we'll go in his place." He was still thinking though, his face all scrunched up and a knuckle tapping his chin lightly. Finally he looked up. "Okay, Parker, Hardison, you stay here."

Parker felt her stomach drop six feet into the ground. She might as well bury it and pronounce it dead. Give it a funeral with doves and…

"Sophie, Eliot, and I will go to London, get to the money before the mark does. Just… delay him a couple days," he told Hardison, and the hacker nodded, but not before looking at Parker. But Parker felt like she was going to throw up again. A couple whole days alone with Hardison?

Hardison must have realized her weird look again because he narrowed his eyebrows in concern, but turned towards Nate. "Yeah, I can mess with the flight logs… or mess with his reservation, whatever. We'll figure it out."

"Alright good," Nate said, and turned to Parker. He looked like to ask her if she was on board, but ended up staring at her. "Are you okay?"

Parker tried to say yes, but now Hardison was looking at her. Hell, everyone was looking at her, but all she really saw was Hardison. Her stomach was bubbly, her senses tingly, and she… she needed to throw up. So she ran to the bathroom and shut the door.

She didn't actually throw up, but she could at least breathe a little better in there. She leaned against the door and took a couple deep breaths. "You're okay," she told herself under her breath. "He's just your friend, Hardison your friend. Just a friend. You're okay." She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. She needed to stop being such a spaz. Just because it was something she's never encountered before, that doesn't mean she should try to run away from it.

When she meets this high tech "impossible to break" security system, does she run away from it? No. She relishes it, enjoys it. It's what she lives for: the adventure, the thrill, the challenge, the success. So why can't she just tackle Hardison head on like those security systems? Well okay, maybe not _tackle_, though she can take Hardison. Put him in that clamp… claw… whatever it was that Eliot called it. That foot thing that had his neck all pressed into her…

Between her legs. God, what _is_ it with her lately? Why does she keep thinking about all that…? She didn't even finish the question in her head, just thought about how it just makes her even more freaked out. But that was her, wasn't it? Obsessive over stuff she's never done, though she now sees that some ways are very different than others.

She hasn't even thought about sex much. Not really, and not lately. Not since the last time she did it, which was like three years ago. Just a little thing that happened in Barcelona with this girl she met at museum she was casing. She doesn't even remember her name, which was probably bad. But it was one of those foreign names that are just complicated and confusing. Sex just wasn't one of those things she needed. Yeah she liked it, it was fun and enjoyable and all these things in between, at least when it wasn't getting forced on her.

But that's why she was scared of Hardison. Not that she thought he would do that, she knows he never would… but every experience she ever had with the opposite sex was… it was… Parker sighed and slumped down on to the ground against the door.

It was traumatizing.

But Hardison was her friend. Hardison was the closest person to her that she's had in almost a decade. So if she was going to like someone, she figures it might be a bit obvious that it would be him. But what if she took one look at his penis and screamed? That could happen, they've always kind of scared her. And then what? She'd hurt his feelings, and she didn't want to do that. Or worse, she'd have to explain why she screamed, and she didn't want to do _that_ either.

But he was her friend, first and foremost, and she didn't want to screw that up. Hardison is the only one who really gets her, is really nice to her, kinda understands her. She doesn't want that to go away. So… so she needs to get up, suck it up, and be okay. It might even be fun, being with only Hardison for a couple of days.

Parker took another deep breath and picked herself up off of the floor. No more Spaz-Parker. Now it's time for Normal-Parker. It was all going to be okay. She's probably making this out to be a trillion times scarier than it really is anyway, right? She'll be okay, and they'll have fun. They'll frolick in the snow and delay flights.

And they did have fun… but that's not all they had.

**TBC…**


	10. Snow Angels

**A/N: You can all thank ficfinishing on LJ for the speedy updates. Seriously. I was slacking on this story until I entered it into the current round of that.**

**CHAPTER TEN  
Snow Angels**

Parker's curled up on the couch, staring at the television but not actually watching it. It was more of a thing to look like she was doing so Hardison didn't notice she was actually staring at him in her peripheral vision. The rest of the team had gone the next afternoon, and they had been alone together for a whole forty seven minutes. Parker knows that because she's been keeping track. It's making it seem longer, watching the minutes tick by, but it was all she could do. Forty seven… no, forty eight minute now… and counting. The clock was taunting her with it's ticking… only she knows she's the only one who can hear it because it's a digital clock, and digital clocks don't actually tick out loud. But it might as well be ticking, the way it's just taunting her. It's been forty nine minutes now, and neither of them have spoken to each other.

Everyone looked at her really weird when she got out of the bathroom last night, but she just explained to them that she had to change her tampon. She didn't, she only had three periods a year with the birth control she was on, and she wasn't due until February. But she knew they would stop asking questions after that, and they did. She didn't actually need the birth control, after only having sex with women most of her life, it seemed kind of pointless to be on it. But at the same time, she'd rather be safe than stupid, because if anyone knows how unpredictable and sudden rape can be, it's her. She can defend herself now, break in and out of many places, but that doesn't make her invincible.

Fifty four minutes.

"Alright, I think we're set," came Hardison's voice through the silence of the room, only dully fixed previously by the low sound of the television.

Scooby Doo was trying to solve a mystery with his human friends. Or is it the other way around? The humans try to solve a mystery with their dog? And yet, if it was the other way around, why would it be named after the dog specifically? It was one of her favorite shows, but sometimes she just doesn't get it. Dogs can't talk. Or maybe they can, and you have to be wearing a specific color all the time to hear it. Velma is orange, Daphne purple, Shaggy green, Fred blue… Parker thinks she'd like to be yellow, cause her hair is kind of yellow, and she thinks it might be fitting.

"His reservation is conveniently 'lost', and I overrode the system so everytime he tries to rebook his ticket it will delete it automatically in the computer. Should keep him busy for a bit," Hardison tells her, then looks up at the girl across from him.

Parker doesn't look at him, or at least, she was pretending not to. Peripheral vision and all that. But she can see Hardison narrow his eyes at her, as if trying to study her, before he gets up and comes over to sit next to her on the couch.

Right next to her, on the small little couch. Parker's trying to breathe. She can, but not well, but she thinks she's gotten better at hiding Spaz-Parker's tendencies.

"Are you pissed at me about something?" Hardison asks her.

"No," Parker answers shortly, and doesn't look at him. Spaz-Parker tended to get… spazztastic when she does that. Yes, it's a word.

"Cause you've been acting weird ever since I told you I looked up your mother," Hardison continues, then pauses as something clicks in his head and he says slowly, "In New York… near here. Is that why you've been…? Cause of her? Her being near here?"

"What?" Parker asks, and turns to look at him finally. Then her eyes widen. She didn't even think of that. Why didn't she think of that? She's been so busy trying to play keep away her feelings from Hardison that she didn't even realize she was in the same city her mother was. How is she supposed to feel about that? _Did_ she feel something about that… at all? She couldn't figure out what this feeling was inside of her, so she couldn't name it properly.

"Your mother," Hardison repeats, and looks at her, attempting to gage her reaction.

"My mother," Parker repeats softly, just staring at him. Usually staring at him directly resulted in a spaz lately, but now she's too caught up in different kinds of thoughts to spaz on cue. Is there a spaz cue? Parker thinks briefly she should look for one so she can stop it before she gets… cued. Cued up to… spaz?

Crap, she's confusing herself.

"What?" Parker asks again, and looks at him like he said something foreign, except he said nothing at all. He's looking at her, partly in worry, and she shakes her head to get herself out of her own thoughts. "No," she says, and blinks a couple times. Then she turns her head away, back to the television, "No."

Her mother is here… somewhere close by. She doesn't know what to think about that, what to do about that. Should she do something about that? Probably not, her mother hasn't seen her in almost twenty years.

"Then why have you been acting like you hate me or somethin'?" Hardison asks her, and Parker hears the change in the pitch of his voice. She's not sure what that means, but she has an idea.

She flickers her eyes over to glance at him before looking back at the television. "I don't hate you," she told him, and tried to keep her voice steady so she didn't have that change of pitch like he did that would reveal things she didn't want him to know.

There's a silence that settles in around the two of them again, all except for the dull noise of the television set. Finally Hardison gets up and goes over to his luggage. Parker watches him curiously, until he turns around and she diverts her eyes back to Scooby Doo. When he sits back down he hands something to her, "Here."

Parker glances at him briefly, then down to what he was giving her. And then this feeling, this warm, good feeling spread all over her. She found herself smiling as she took the paper from him. The picture of her mother. "Figured you'd want it," he tells her, and she looks up at him.

She doesn't know where it came from exactly, or why she found herself doing it, but suddenly her arms are around him. She practically pounced, which made him have to keep his balance from the force, and let out of "Oof!" as she squeezes him. He looks surprised, and hell, she was even surprised that she did it. The only time she had ever hugged any of them was when she as doped up on anti-psychotics. She was never really a touchy-feely person, but for some reason, she just needed to.

And then she was up, quicker than lightning, and off to put it someplace safe in her luggage. She can see Hardison watching her with a goofy looking smile on his face from her physical contact, and even though it looks almost cartoonish, she smiles to herself, turning away so he can't see, because she finds it cute.

Turning to face him finally after it was tucked away safely she tells him, "We should go make snow angels."

"What?" he asks, momentarily taken out of his own thoughts by her suggestion.

"Snow angels. You lay down in the snow and—"

"I know what they are," Hardison tells her, and cracks a smile, liking that things were becoming a bit more normal. He glances outside at the falling snow for a minute as if contemplating the idea. Then he looks back at her and shrugs, "Why not?"

Parker hops a little in glee, and grabs her jacket. Twenty minutes later they were in the middle of a small park. The sun was setting in the distance, and the children were being filed back into their apartments by their mothers. Parker bites her lower lip softly, just looking at all the snow around her… and then takes off running.

"Parker!" Hardison calls after her, but she doesn't listen. She just wants to run. It's bit difficult in the snow, and she probably looked funny since she was almost hopping in and out of the two and a half feet of it, but it was still fun. But then she kind of tripped in it, sinking a bit too deep and not being able to pull her foot out in time and she falls. She giggles as she hits the snow and lies back, looking up at the sky. It was cold, but it wasn't too bad. She hears another "Parker!" from Hardison before he finds her.

He stands over her, and Parker just giggles again as she looks up at him. She can't help but think about how beautiful he looks, his dark skin up against the dimly lighten sky, snow flakes falling all around him, so she just stares at him. She probably has this stupid smile on her face, but she can't find it in her to care. She loves being in the snow, having fun, _playing,_ too much to care about anything else. This is bliss for her.

She holds out her gloved hands to him and he smirks a bit as he takes them, trying to help her up. But instead of her going up, she pulls hard and he lets out a yelp as he falls into the snow next to her. He sputters a bit as the snow gets in his face and as he wipes it off with his glove, Parker can't help but laugh. "You can't make a snow angel up there," she tells him.

"Little warning would have been nice though," Hardison replies, but he doesn't seem too mad. But then he looks at their positions, them right next to each other and adds, "But now we don't have enough room to make snow angels."

"Yeah we do," Parker tells him, and moves over just a bit so their shoulders are touching. "We can do half an half. You do your right side and I'll do my left. It'll look like a fat person did it."

Hardison can't help but laugh, "A pretty deformed fat person, but if you say so…"

"I say so," Parker confirms with a smile, and then they start. It was a bit hard for them to only do it on one side, or maybe it was a bit hard for Parker to adjust to it because she wanted to do her right side too and continued to kick Hardison a bit on the shins. After so many sorry's, Hardison stopped complaining. Parker thinks he's accepted the bruises already.

They both get up and looked at their artwork. Parker tilts her head and peers down at it, "You're right, it looks deformed." She frowns a bit. "Our poor fat person..."

Hardison laughs, "Told you. You should listen to me more often."

Parker just continues to stare down at their double snow angel deformed fat person, and doesn't even notice Hardison has moved a little bit away from her. Or at least, she didn't notice until she got pelted with a snowball. "Hey!" she exclaims, but then a wicked grin forms across her face as she picks up some snow. Hardison's eyes go wide and he starts running a bit, well, as much as he can through the steep snow. But she throws it and it hits him square on his back.

As he stumbles Parker sees him pick up some more snow, which makes her retreat. He misses the first time and she lets out a, "HA!" before she gets pelted with the second one in the chest. She shrieks and giggles and as she runs she's trying to gather as much snow as she can, pelting snowballs at him as he chases her.

It went on for awhile until Hardison finally catches up to her, but then he trips and falls into her, bringing them both down into the snow. Parker's in a fit of giggles that it takes awhile for her to get out of, and as she rolls onto her back she tells him, "I win."

"Girl, you wish. I am the snowball _king_," Hardison tells her, and Parker just smiles as she looks up into the sky, watching the snow fall.

There's silence for a while as both of them just lay there. Then Parker tells him, "They're like fairies."

"What are?" Hardison asks, and looks over at her. Parker points up into the sky, at the snow.

"The flakes. Little fairies. Flying, coming down to Earth from... wherever."

Hardison snorts, "I think I've made you watch too much Doctor Who if you're implying fairies are like aliens."

"They could be," Parker tells him in all seriousness. She looks over at him and asks, "How would you know?"

"I wouldn't," Hardison says, then shugs. He looks back up into the sky, at the snow flakes that are falling softly. "Maybe they are."

Then he's looking at her again, turned on his side as he props his head up as he leans on his elbow. Parker looks over at him, and then a funny feeling hits her and she doesn't know where it came from. Hardison was pretty again, the light and the snow and his pretty skin. It made her feel a little funny, so she just looks at him. She finds she can't say anything, like her mouth isn't working. Which is a change, since usually everything that comes into her brain tends to fall out of her mouth automatically.

"You got snow right…" Hardison tells her softly, and flicks a couple flakes off of her cheek softly. "There."

Parker can hear her own heart beating. It was getting louder, faster, and she wasn't sure why.

She does the only thing she can think of, her raises her hand to gently wipe the snow flakes off of his own face. He did it; she figured she's supposed to now. But the funny feeling was getting deeper, more predominant, like it was sinking right into her stomach and started freaking out because it couldn't figure out where to go next. The silence was long, deafening, which made it so much easier to hear how much her breathing had picked up.

She can hear a car pass, then another. She can hear the wind rustle through the trees, and she can hear her breathing again. Her stupid breathing, that seemed so very loud all of a sudden even though she's sure it can't possibly as loud as she thinks it is. Has Hardison gotten closer to her? Or did she move?

"We should…" Hardison starts to tell her, implying going back. Parker notices that his voice is lower, deeper, softer. And when she goes to reply, she realizes hers has gotten that way too, but she doesn't know why since she didn't explicitly give it permission too. It wasn't following the orders her brain was screaming to it.

"Yeah…" she replied, but yet neither of them moved to get up. Instead they're faces were almost touching, and Parker could feel his breath on her lips, and by how many bursts of it there was in such a short time she had noticed hers wasn't the only one that picked up. She closes her eyes, not knowing what to do. Needing to not look at him so she has time to think, but her brain seems to be stuck, unmoving, unthinking. All there is is the breathing, and the heartbeats, and the wind, trees, cars…

His lips touch hers, but only just barely. Parker gets scared and ducks her head down, out of the way so he couldn't do that anymore. She doesn't open her eyes, she still can't think. Her senses seem to be on overload, screaming at her all these things and yet not saying a word at all.

"Sorry, I just… sorry," Hardison apologizes softly, almost automatically, and moves to get away from her. But then Parker grabs him, her body changing it's mind without any kind of conversation or permission from her mind, and then her lips are pressed against his… and she's kissing him.

Oh god, she was kissing Hardison.

There were lips and tongues involved, and she realizes she must have been part at fault at them getting closer to begin with because her full back was only just now against the ground as Hardison was on top of her. There were feelings and tingles and shivers and there… there was just so much that it started to become scary. Too scary. The kind of scary she doesn't know how to quite deal with, so she chooses to not deal with it at all.

Parker breaks the kiss and sits up a bit, forcing Hardison to climb off of her gently. Parker can't look at him, and she sure as hell can't breathe. "It's dark," she tells him, the only thing she can get out of her mouth at the moment and she gets up, out of the snow, and doesn't even wait for him to say anything before she starts running back towards the hotel room.

"Parker! Parker, hey, wait!"

But Parker doesn't wait, she just runs. She runs because it's the only thing she knows how to do. She runs because it's the only thing she's been good at doing her whole life.

**TBC…**


	11. Fantasia

**CHAPTER ELEVEN  
Fantasia**

"Parker?" There's knock on the door, and Parker closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as Hardison continues, "Parker, can you… please open the door? Parker…?"

She didn't know what to do, so she trapped herself in one of the bedrooms, just trying to give herself room to think. But thinking seemed to be proving difficult, because the only thing that was happening in her head was replaying what just happened over and over again. She knows the what part of the question, but she can't think enough to get to the why.

"Parker?"

She didn't know what to tell him, mainly because it was her who kissed him. She still can't figure out why she did that. Well, she knows _why_, but she doesn't know why she didn't stop herself. She promised herself she wouldn't do this. She didn't want to hurt Hardison, and with her whole 'I don't know what I want' thing that is dancing around her head like hippos in tutus… wait, she got a bit off track there.

Cookies.

Parker unlocks the door and throws it open, and Hardison just blinks and takes a step back from the suddenness. She's looking at him, and she's going to try to explain this even though her head is like Fantasia.

"I'm cookies," she told him. "With the locks and the fiddlyness and… and I'm not done baking," she tells him. "Chocolate chips and lock picks."

Hardison blinks, and it takes him awhile to answer, and Parker is hoping she made some kind of sense because her brain didn't seem to be making any. Hardison looked a bit awkward though, just from this entire situation and shifted a bit on his feet. He must have had to think about what she just said, replay it in his head a bit, because it was silent for a minute before he said, "I get the lock thing… you said that before. But the… oh," then Hardison smirked, actually amused. Still looking awkward, but at the same time, still amused, "Did you just quote Buffy? Well, quote Buffy badly, anyway."

"Yes, and I'm not ready to be eaten! I'm still soft!" Parker exclaims, then she blinks and slaps a hand over her face. "No, wait…" And then she retreats back into the room and shuts the door behind her. Mickey mouse just showed up in her head with his wand.

"Parker!" Hardison asks, but the amusement is still light in his voice. But then its gone, and his voice is softer and he knocks on the door lightly. "Hey, Parker? I… I understand what you're saying, okay? I won't try to pick your lock or anything." Then there's a pause and then, "Oh god, now you have me doing it…" he mumbles, embarrassed, and Parker finds herself smiling a little bit, even in her scared state.

It wasn't like she didn't like kissing Hardison. She did. A lot, and that was what was bad. It was so… it was so much like how she felt when she kissed Justine, only so different at the same time. But all the tingly feelings, all the heart beating and the labored breathing and the… desire. Parker's eyes popped wide open at that revelation. For some reason, she never exactly associated liking Hardison with having sexual feelings towards him. Not really anyway, she never really thought about actually have desire for the man, even though she knew that liking him would more than likely result in sex at some point, if they ever decided to go that far… _why is she thinking about this?_

She wants to stick C-4 on Mickey Mouse, and blow him and his stupid dancing hippos up.

She bangs the back of her head against the wood of the door and sighs. She doesn't know how to stop her own brain. Whenever she gets scared and nervous random things pop up in there, and this time it seemed to be linked to that stupid movie. "Parker?" Hardison asked again, and Parker closes her eyes.

"Yeah?" she asks softly, still not opening her eyes.

"Are we…" there's a light sigh and then, "Are we… you know, okay?" he asks her, and then it's her turn to sigh softly. She wants to say yes, because they were… they are. But she's also terrified now that she did that. "I won't tell anyone, if that's what you worried about…"

"That's not it," she tells him through the closed door. She opens her eyes and turns her head to rest her cheek against the wood. She could feel him on the other side of it.

"Then what is it?" he asks her, and she can feel him lean against the door on the opposite side. She doesn't know if she wants to tell him, and now Mickey was making the waves jump up against the rocks in his silly little sorcerer hat.

She wants to trade her brain in for a new one.

"I'm…" Parker was about to tell him, about to tell him that she was just scared, but instead ends with, "Tired. I'm tired; I'm going to go to bed. Mickey's driving me crazy."

A pause. "Mickey?" Another pause, and Parker wishes she didn't say anything. "Mickey Mouse?" But then she smiles, Hardison knows her too well.

"Yeah."

She knows Hardison's smiling, even though she can't see him, she can just hear it in his voice. "Okay… well I'll see you in the morning, I guess. Okay? Yeah…"

Parker doesn't say anything; just listens to him walk away and go into the other bedroom, his footsteps slowly fading away. She sighs and walks over to the bed and flops down onto it face first. She hated this; she didn't know what to do. But at the same time she kind of loved it, all besides Mickey in her brain. Stupid mops and their buckets of water.

Truth was, she wasn't just scared to start it because it would be her first relationship with a man, she was scared to start it because of how bad everything hurt when she ended things with Justine. Or should she say, Justine ended things with her. And as she lay there in bed, staring at the far wall and trying to push Mickey Mouse out of her brain, she couldn't help but remember what happened.

"I can't do this anymore, Parker," Justine told her while they were packing once again to move. The police were getting too close, and they had to move on. They had gotten what they came for anyway, or at least Parker did.

"What? I thought you liked Rome," Parker blinked, looking up from shoving her clothes into a bag. "We can go to France if you want, or New Zealand, you liked that because… why again?"

Justine let out a small laugh, and her lips curled up into a smile as she looked down at the floor before she let out quietly, "'Cause Xena was filmed there."

"Right, that woman with a sword. We can go there instead," Parker told her and gave her a little smile, even though she was getting this weird feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't identify. It wasn't one of those good feelings; it was one of the bad ones. The bad ones that made her feel like her stomach dropped all the way to the floor.

Justine shook her head and looked up at her, and Parker didn't like the smile she was giving her. It was almost sad, kind of pitying. Oh no. "It's not… it's not where we're goin'… it's…" then she sighs, "It's us, babygirl."

"What's wrong with us?" Parker asked, that worry becoming more predominant. She abandoned her packing and stood up straighter, maybe trying to make herself seem more okay, stronger. Taller maybe, even though she was already two inches taller than Justine.

"It ain't workin'," Justine told her softly, and Parker felt like someone had just stabbed her through the heart. She tried to say something, anything, but nothing seemed to come out of her mouth. "It's not that I don't… well, ya know…"

"I _don't_ know," Parker told her, and found that her voice was shaking. She set her jaw and just stared at the other woman across from her.

"That I don't love you," Justine told her softly. Then Parker got angry, because she just couldn't understand why she was doing this then.

"Then why can't you stay?!" Parker yelled, her emotions getting the better of her. She chose anger over sadness because she could handle it better; it didn't make her seem as weak. And she knew she was weak… because she had no control over this situation.

"This ain't my lifestyle, Parker. I ain't… I ain't a thief. I can't deal with all this runnin' all the damn time, all the movin' to different places!" Justine exclaims, and Parker just glares at her.

"You're the one who said you wanted to be like Bonnie and Clyde!" Parker screamed at her, the emotion heavy in her voice. "Isn't that what this is? With the running and the stealing and… isn't this what you wanted? I don't _understand!"_

"I thought I wanted it," Justine told her, her voice getting softer. "But I just can't… I mean I ain't even stealing anythin'. You do it. I just sit here, we have fun a little bit till we gotta pack up and run again."

"I get you things!" Parker tells her, as if that's supposed to mean something because she thinks it should. She spends her precious money on her, something she doesn't even do for herself.

"Then what does that make me, your _whore?"_ Justine exclaimed, now angry, but that wasn't what Parker meant and now she's even more mad because she hates not being understood.

"I didn't say that!" Parker screamed, furious. She went over to the bureau which was adorned with all of the jewelry she had bought for Justine, and picked up a fistful and showed it to her. "You want things and I get you them, _what am I doing wrong?!" _She slammed the jewelry back down on the bureau and stared at her.

"Nothing!" Justine yelled at her, frustrated herself.

"Then why are you leaving me?!" Parker cried, not understand it. Any of it. Wasn't she doing what girlfriends are supposed to do?

"Because I can't keep _running!"_

"Fine!" Parker exclaimed, and went back over to the bags that were on the bed and started throwing the clothes back out of it.

"What are you doing?"

"We won't run then!" Parker exclaimed, just desperate to keep her. She didn't care. She never had something like this before in her life and didn't want to let it go. But Justine took her hands in hers and stilled her movements.

"Stop. Parker, stop. Listen to me," Justine said, and Parker heard herself let out a sob she didn't want to escape her lips. She was crying now, and she didn't want to do that. "You have to go, you'll get caught if you stay here."

"I don't care!"

"Yes, you do," Justine told her softly, and sat down on the bed, guiding Parker down slowly to sit next to her. Parker put her head in her hands, trying to stop the crying but at the same time just not wanting Justine to see her do it. "This is your thing, I see how happy you get when you steal shit, whatever it is. Ya love it, I ain't gonna take that away from you."

Parker didn't understand why if she didn't want to take stealing away from her because she loves it, why she would then take herself away from her when she loved her too. But she didn't answer her; she was too busy trying not to cry.

"We had a nice year…" Justine told her, and brushes a piece of hair away from Parker's face, but Parker moves away from her. She takes her head out of her hands and looks at her, tears staining her cheeks and when she sees them she looks at her sadly and says, "Oh, sweetie…"

"I wanted to be with you forever," Parker told her seriously, her voice breaking, but it didn't matter. She needed to tell her.

Justine smiled at her sadly and put her hand on top of Parker's that was resting on her lap. "You're eighteen, you don't know whatcha want yet, babygirl."

Parker moved her hand away from her and glared, "Don't patronize me."

Justine smirked, "Big word."

"I said _don't_," Parker told her seriously, and Justine's smirk faltered.

"Sorry," she apologized. Parker didn't say anything though, just stared at the far wall. It felt like her insides were shredding apart. "Look, it ain't like you're gonna be alone. You got Jake," she told her, but that just made Parker roll her eyes in the middle of a glare.

"I don't kiss Jake," she responded flatly. "Jake doesn't make me feel… he doesn't make me feel all the tingly stuff inside like you do. With the shivers and stuff." She saw Justine smile at her description, she always liked the way Parker described things.

"I know," Justine said softly. She looked down at the ground, "Ya know this ain't easy for me either."

Parker looked over at her, and she wished the desperation didn't show as much as it did in her voice when she pleaded, "Then don't go."

"I have to." Justine sighed and now it was her turn to look at the wall, "This is… this is like some kind of fantasy life. It ain't real."

"Just because it's fantasy doesn't mean it can't be real," Parker told her, and Justine smiled a little before turning to look at her sadly.

"Yeah, it does."

Parker wiped her tears off of her cheeks with the back of her hand and took a shuddered breath. She hated this, and she didn't know how to stop it. She didn't want her to go, she didn't want her to leave her. Everyone always leaves her, it wasn't fair.

Justine took a breath before getting up and turning to face her. She leaned down and kissed her on the cheek softly, and it made Parker's eyes flutter closed. "You'll always be my Bonnie, babygirl… but I can't be your Clyde," she whispered in her ear. "I promise you'll find one though… one day."

It broke Parker's heart. Shattered it into a million pieces. She watched Justine leave, and all she could do was cry. She cried so hard her throat hurt and she couldn't breathe. And when Jake came into her and Justine's… now just her room, she held onto his shirt and cried against his chest, asking him why she had to hurt her like that. Over and over she asked him why… but he didn't have an answer for her.

Parker lay awake most of that night, just thinking about when Justine left her. She felt herself begin to cry, just an aftermath of the memory and she took a pillow and held it tightly against her chest, scared that the same thing would happen with Hardison if she ever let him get that close.

She missed Jake, because he would tell her how to be with a man. She missed her mother, because she knew her mother would tell her that Hardison was her prince. She missed Sophie, because she would help her figure out her feelings. She missed Nate, because he would find her something to do to keep her mind off of things. And she missed Eliot, because even though he was always grumpy, if she was crying like she is now he would find a way to make it better.

And she missed Hardison, even though he was just in the next room, now more than ever, she just wanted his arms around her. It didn't matter why, it didn't matter what it meant she just… needed it. He made her feel safe.

But instead she just cried herself to sleep.

**TBC…**


	12. Slow

**CHAPTER TWELVE  
Slow**

Parker is scared to leave her room the next morning. She doesn't really know how long it's been that she's been standing on the other side of the bedroom door, just trying to work up the courage to open it. But everytime her hand would come close to the handle it was like it burned her, and she shot her hand back and retreated another step back into solitude.

It was so stupid though, so very stupid. She can jump off a building, dance near death so much that she even has it's name and it's phone number, and yet she can't walk out a silly little door. Just a simple _door_. Why couldn't she do that? One foot in front of the other, grasp the handle, turn it, go through it. She can go over the steps over and over again in her head and yet… nothing happens.

She knows Hardison is awake, she heard him in the living room earlier. He hasn't disturbed her though, hasn't come and checked on her. Parker really isn't sure if she'd rather he did, or if she's glad that he hasn't. She's so confused. But she's getting hungry, and food is on the other side of the door. Her stomach growls at her, yelling at her to feed it with this big monstrous booming voice that she's pretty sure just vibrated her whole frame. She sighs because she knows she needs to leave the room.

It took a little bit of time until she actually found the strength to leave. It was more of a frantic leap towards the door, grabbing onto the door handle and pulling it open so fast and so hard it banged against the wall, the loud noise echoing through the hotel suite.

Hardison screams and falls off the couch.

"Uh, hi," Parker says, looking at him pick himself up off the ground, one hand over his chest like he's trying to make his heart slow down to it's normal speed. He just stares at her for a few minutes, eyes wide as he gets back up before he speaks.

"_Christ_, woman! You almost killed me!" he exclaims finally, and lets out a breath of air. He leans back against the couch and puts his head back. "Lord."

"I was having door… problems," Parker tells him, and shifts her weight a bit between her feet as she purses her lips. She feels awkward. Not because of the door, the door is just a door, but because of… everything else. She blinks and looks at him. "I'm hungry," she states.

"What? Oh," Hardison says, trying to get back to reality. He points to the island counter in the kitchen, "Yeah, there's food up there." He breathes again and shakes his head as he says under his breath, still in shock a bit, "Jesus. Good morning world, I guess."

Parker looks at him funny for a minute as she slowly starts to make her way over to the kitchen. Probably too slow, because she's watching him. She probably looks like some sort of animal, creeping up to her food while keeping one eye on the enemy. Not that Hardison was the enemy, he was just… there. She just needed to watch him. "You cooked?" she asks, like it was some kind of foreign concept that she doesn't know if she can trust.

"Yeah, it ain't as good as Eliot's but I mean, it's decent," Hardison tells her, but doesn't look at her. He's immersed in his computer again, trying to sound like everything was normal, only it still ended up sounding a bit awkward.

"You never cook," Parker states as she's in the kitchen now, still watching him as she literally backs up slowly to the island counter where her food lay.

"We always have Eliot. Plus, I…" but then he stops, his eyes flickering over to her for a moment before he coughs a bit awkwardly and looks at his computer again. "Nevermind," he mumbles.

Parker has a suspicion though, and she has her suspicious voice on as she raises her eyebrows and peers over at him probably a bit too dramatically before her eyes shift to the food. "Did you cook for me?" she asks, and her eyes look back at him.

There's a long silence, too long. Parker prods at the eggs and bacon with the fork lain out for her. "…I thought you'd be hungry," is all Hardison offers after that long silence. He still doesn't look at her. She pokes at her food again, and then looks back at him.

"Oh," is all she says, not knowing what else to say to that. She picks up the plate of food and her fork and takes a bite. There's more silence. "It's good," she tells him finally.

"Thanks," he says, but still looks like he's absorbed with something on his computer; only he's not actually doing anything. Parker brings herself away from the kitchen and into the living room so she can sit down and eat.

But she sits on the couch next to Hardison, and then realizes she's probably a little too close, so she moves over a bit. Then she realizes she's probably now too far away and doesn't want him to think that she doesn't want to be near him, so she moves closer. But then she's too close again, so she moves back. But that wasn't right either, so she…

"Maybe I should go," Hardison says, noticing her weird behavior and blaming himself. He closes his laptop and starts to get up.

"No!" Parker exclaims, probably a bit more forcefully than she would have liked it to come out. Hardison stops trying to get up and looks at her. "It's just… the couch. It's uncomfortable in some places. Little couch bump monsters are everywhere," she tells him, just trying to tell him anything.

But Hardison doesn't say anything about the couch bump monsters. Instead he looks down, like he's trying to think of what exactly to say. When he looks at her again he says, "We can just… you know, pretend it never happened, if you want. Or I can say I'm sorry like a million and a half times, if that helps. Or we can blame the snow, cause I'm sure it makes everyone do weird shit, right?"

"Right, blame the snow," Parker agrees, nodding a lot. More than she should, probably. She just wanted to blame the snow. "The snow makes people cold and… kissy."

"Cold and kissy," Hardison agrees, with a nod.

"Bad snow."

"Bad snow," Hardison repeats awkwardly, and they both look at each other for a little while until they turn away at the same time, choosing to look at something else. Then they both let out a sigh at the same time, which would be weird enough in and of it's self except then they looked at each other again… at the same exact time.

"I wanted to kiss you," Parker blurts out. It just fell out of her mouth without any kind of warning, and she wants to slap herself.

"I wanted to kiss you too," Hardison tells her quickly. But then a silence settles in, and they just stare at each other. Finally Hardison says, "But you can't...?"

"I can't," Parker finishes quickly. She licks her lips nervously, and her eyes dart around the room. She's nervous again. She just hopes Mickey doesn't show up with his mops. "It's scary," she tells him, and wishes _that _didn't come out of her mouth either. She's going to have a strong talk with her brain to mouth function later.

"Why?"

"It just is," she tells him. The conversation is going so quickly, one right after the other, like if they didn't just spit things out then nothing would ever come out, but after Hardison says the next thing, Parker doesn't know what to say.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Parker."

Parker just stares at him. She doesn't know what she's supposed to say to that. How can someone promise that? How could she just believe something like that? Nothing's set in stone, nothing is really promised. But yet that didn't stop her from saying in a low voice, almost a whisper, "I know."

She has no idea where it came from, and she's sure it wasn't her brain, which was at that moment attempting to think rationally. It came from somewhere else, and she didn't know where. She swallows hard and looks down at her plate of food. She's not hungry anymore.

"It's too fast," she tells him honestly, finally. Though she says it more to her plate of eggs and bacon than to him.

"Slows fine, slows good… I am the _master_ of slow," Hardison tells her quickly, then makes a face because he seemed like he didn't like that way that sounded. "I mean… I… I like you, Parker. I can do slow, I can do turtle slow. I can wait…" the next part was almost in a whisper, "Been waitin' all my life for someone like…" he looks away from her and finishes, "Wait forever, really." Then a pause, and the next part is louder as he puts his head in one of his hands, "Man that sounded stupid, didn't it?"

But that made the butterflies in Parker's stomach fly higher, up around her heart, and it made her smile. She put her hand over his that was resting on he couch. "Just hold my hand while I eat breakfast," she tells him softly. He looks over at her, and he smiles, that beautiful smile that she loves, and he laces their fingers together.

Then she eats, and they watch television, and they talk about stupid little things like the cartoon they were watching and how he cooked the bacon. After she was finished with her plate she put it down and found herself closer to him, almost leaning against him. It was one of those things that was entirely scary but at the same time really wonderful, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. She liked touching him, being near him. He was warm and soft and strong and just… safe.

He shifts a little bit; his arm is kind of stuck under them. "Um," he starts, a little embarrassed, or maybe a little worried of the answer. "Can I…?" Parker looks up at him, not knowing what he's trying to ask. "Can I put my arm around you?" he finishes.

"What? Oh," Parker says and moves a little. "Yeah." So he does, and then they settle back against each other. It was probably really awkward, them both not knowing what they're really supposed to do with each other, but Parker couldn't help but like the simplicity of just the little things that they were doing right now. It was better this way for her anyway. Even though her heart was racing a million miles an hour and she was nervous, she was so nervous she could burst, it was really nice being wrapped up in his arms, but that's all she thinks she can handle at the moment.

"So…" Hardison starts slowly, not sure what he's really supposed to say. "I uh, I checked on the mark's reservations. Still not going though, so that's good—"

"I don't want to talk about work," Parker tells him. Work was… work was what they always talked about. Okay well not really, her and Hardison could find other things to talk about. But work was something they always talked about when things got awkward.

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," Parker answers, and shrugs. She watches as she runs her thumb over the back of Hardison's hand. "Our skin looks pretty together," she tells him. "Like one of those twisted soft serve ice creams." Hardison smirked.

"You wanna talk about our hands?"

"No. I don't know," Parker says, and shrugs again. She raises their hands up and looks at them. "But I like them together. It's warm. Which isn't like ice cream, unless you get fried ice cream at those Chinese places… except we don't look like that."

"Is this weird?" Hardison asks her, since she's continuing to babble about ice cream. She doesn't know why she's doing that, she just feels like she needs to talk about something. Anything.

"No," Parker answers automatically. But then she blinks and looks up at him. "I don't know, a little," she tells him softly.

"Do you want to stop?" Hardison asks, but he looks like she hopes she doesn't.

"No," she tells him firmly, determined. "No, this is… good. It's good. With the… goodness, and stuff. Just… gotta get used to it."

"Well… do you want to… go do something, maybe?" Hardison asks, looking down at her. Parker furrows her eyebrows.

"Like what?" She didn't know what else there really was to do, except for going out in the snow. But snow provoked kissing and she didn't know if she could deal with all that.

"We could go find your mother."

Parker tenses. Every muscle in her body seems to contract into herself and she can't move. Hardison can feel it, and he quickly revises, "Okay, bad plan. That was a huge hacker-bad. I'm sorry."

"I just…" Parker starts, but doesn't know what to say. She blinks a couple times, looking across the room at nothing, but yet she was still staring. "She wouldn't remember me," she tells him.

"She's your mother."

"Yeah, and I haven't seen her in twenty years," Parker tells him flatly, her voice showing a little bit of anger. She moves away from him, but he won't let go of her hand.

"Parker, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? We won't talk about her," Hardison tells her, and looks at her seriously and full of apology. Parker stares at him for a little bit before she relaxes.

"Okay," she says, and she moves back next to him slowly.

"I'm sorry," Hardison repeats.

"I know, you said that already," Parker tells him, and lays her head back down on his shoulder. He runs his fingers through her hair and she closes her eyes, trying to think.

Her mother. How could she just go and see her mother after all this time? Even if she did, could she really bring Hardison with her? She trusted him, but only to a point. She had to always only trust everyone only to a point, it was instinctual. What if he laughed at his mother, called her crazy? Told Parker that she should have never seen her in the first place?

What if her mother didn't know who she was? Or worse, what if she did and didn't want her around? It was just… all too much. She's already going through too many emotions with Hardison, she can't deal with anymore. Not now. It'd just be too hard.

But she didn't know if she could leave this city without at least trying.

**TBC…**


	13. Pink

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN  
Pink**

"Look, baby," her mother said airily as she sat with Parker, only six years old then, in the grass of the their front yard that overlooked the street. She had one arm around her, and the other pointed out at all the people on the busy street. "Do you see the colors around all the people?"

Parker looked, she squinted, she even turned her head to the side and peered, but she didn't see the colors her mother was talking about. "No, momma," she tells her in her tiny little voice. She almost squeaked. She had a squeaky mouse voice when she was tiny. Her mother sometime's called her Minnie, for Minnie Mouse because of that.

Her mother stroked her long blonde hair, so long it came down all the way down her back and she whispered in her ear, "Just wait until the medicine I gave you starts working, then you'll see it. Then I'll explain, okay?"

Parker nodded, and then she waited. She started to feel a little funny, and she giggled a bit, just out of nowhere. Then after a bit she did start to see colors, beautiful colors, _everywhere_. They were light, almost like they weren't there to begin with and yet… they were. "I see them, Momma!" Parker exclaimed, excited.

Her mother smiled and hugged her tight, "Good girl!" she told her, excited. Then she pointed again. "Do you see any pink?"

Parker looked, she looked really, really hard. All the beautiful colors, it was like she could feel them. She could feel her mother right up against her, but so much more than just that. It was like everywhere, everything. So much love and happiness. So much good stuff. But she couldn't see any pink. "No," Parker told her.

But instead of being upset with her, her mother just smiled. "Do you want to know why?" She ran her hand down Parker's arm, and the tiny girl shivered.

"Because pink is icky?" she asked, and her mom giggled.

"No, Princess. Because when you finally find someone who's pink… who's so pink you can feel it, smell it, taste it all around you like honey… that's who you're true love is. Your prince," she told her, but Parker looked up at her mother, who looked a little blueish green, and scrunched up her face a little, confused.

"But what if it's a girl? Girl's can't be princes," Parker tells her.

"Who says?" Her mother asks with a smile, that airy smile she always gets when she feels like she's floating. "You just find your prince, whoever it is, and when you find him you bring them to me… I wanna see my princess with her prince… okay? I wanna see you ride away in a carriage full of pumpkins and fairies. You promise, Minnie? Pinky Swear."

Her mother held out her pinky finger to her, and Parker looked at it for a moment, just watching the colors. Then she wrapped her tiny finger around her mother's and said, "I swear, Momma."

Parker isn't stupid, she knows exactly what her mother gave her that day to make her see the colors, and she knows how wrong it is to give a child drugs. But at the same time, her mother opened her eyes to a whole new world, a world with actual answers, even if most people would never see it that way. She had taken it only once again after that, during a time she went clubbing with Justine. But Justine had a sort of an orange hue, but that could have been the lights. It didn't matter to her though; she still wanted to stay with Justine forever. She loved her. But as she thought about it, maybe it didn't work out because she wasn't the right color.

Hardison is so gonna kill her when she gets back to the hotel.

But she was scared. She was so scared that something bad was going to happen again because she's all holding hands with him and snuggling and kissing him a grand total of one time. She's scared because she doesn't know if it's going to work, she's scared because she's convinced she's going to get hurt, she's scared because everything is a big mystery. She's scared because she just doesn't _know_.

And she needs to know.

She turns the door handle of the hotel suite and prances in. It really was kind of a prance, a little hop and a skip… no jump, because she was feeling kind of lovely. She smiled at Hardison.

"Where have you been? I've been calling your cell! Do you _never_ check your voicemail?" Hardison exclaims as he comes over to her, but then he stops as he really_ sees_ her. "Where were you?" he asks her slowly as his eyes trail over her form, as if studying her. Something was off; he could see it, maybe feel it. Parker wasn't sure how he knew, but he did. "You've been gone for hours… I got worried. Thought the police… well…" Parker didn't answer, she just continued to smile at him.

"Okay…" Hardison said slowly, looking at her funny and went behind her to close the door behind her. He put her hands on her shoulders when he turned around. "You alright, girl?"

"Fabulous," she tells him with a grin, the 's' being drawn out a little more than it should, and she proceeds to glide over to the couch and flop down on it on her back. She looked up at the ceiling. It was getting a bit prettier.

"Parker?" she heard Hardison ask as he came over to her. "Parker, where were you?"

"Running an errand," she tells him lightly and brings her arms up above her head and points at the ceiling. Then she spins them, just in tiny little circles. It looked so beautiful.

"And by any chance did this errand include drugs?" Hardison asks her, his voice stern, but yet at the same time light, but also mixed with worry as he watched her. "Parker… do you do drugs?" he asks her seriously, and Parker can feel him sit on the couch. She didn't answer. "Parker, this is serious. Tell me."

"No," she tells him. Because she doesn't, not really. Not often. Only three times now.

"Why are you lying to me? Parker, I'm not stupid," Hardison tells her, and she can tell he's getting kind of mad at her. He's mad because he's so worried, but it's not time yet. Almost, but not yet. Just a few more minutes.

"Shh, hold on," Parker tells him, and her hand floats down to her face and she presses a finger to her lips. She giggles.

"Parker! What are you on?!" Hardison asks her, the worry more predominant in his voice. He touches her arm, and she squirms.

"Mmm…" she says softly. It felt good, being touched. She likes it a lot, and she wants him to do it more. "More."

"Shit," Hardison says softly, and lets go of her arm like he's been burned. "Damnit, Parker! Have you been taking—?!"

"Shhhh…" she hushes him again. "Wait for it." Hardison lets out an annoyed sigh and is about to say something before Parker says softly, "Now…" and then she sits up, and she looks at him.

"God, you're pupils are fucking huge," Hardison tells her, part in worry and part in anger, but she's not listening. She's just staring at him because… because…

He was pink. Very slightly, almost never there but yet it was, so bright and so loud and so soft and so… so very there. He was pink. Hardison was pink. He was the most beautiful pink in the whole world that she just wants to reach out and touch it. Hold on to it, keep it forever. It was so perfect, and so flawed, and so human that it was… amazing.

"You're pink…" Parker says softly, and reaches out to touch his face in almost awe.

Hardison's confused. "Last time I checked I was black, thank you." He takes his hand in hers and takes it away from his face and lets it go. "Parker… this is serious. Why are you poppin' X?"

"No, I want to touch you, you're beautiful, you're pink," she tells him, and she crawls closer to him. He moves back a little and she frowns but continues to get closer until he's backed up against the edge.

"Parker, I'm black. Parker!" Hardison exclaims as she's practically on top of him now, trapping him. "Parker, listen to me. Stop… listen. No! Back up, please. Parker! Personal space!"

"Shhh…" she tells him again, smiling. She's in his lap now, almost straddling him. Hardison didn't have anywhere to go, and his eyes were beginning to get wide as he looked at her. He was trapped. But Parker didn't notice, all she noticed was the pink, the pretty. She touches his face again, sliding her fingers slowly down his cheek. "You're beautiful pink."

"Parker, first… backing up would probably be best. I know what that shit does. Second, I'm _not_ pink," Hardison tells her. He's trying to strain away as far as he can from her, pressing his back up against the couch and leaning his head back, but Parker just keeps getting closer.

"You're my prince, you're pink," she tells him softly, and runs her finger softly over his bottom lip. Hardison's eyes go wide.

"Parker…" he warns gently. "You don't want to do this… slow… remember? Turtles and stuff, do you remember the turtles?" But Parker's getting closer to him, smiling slightly as she strokes his bottom lip. "Turtles, Parker! TURTLES!"

Parker giggles, and her lips are barely a breath away from his. "Turtles," she repeats, but has no comprehension of what to word is supposed to mean at the moment. "Mmm…" she whispers, almost a giggle as she draws closer. Then her lips meet his, softly, very innocently. She closes her eyes as he opens his mouth, allowing her access. It was like her senses were exploding, exploding past the stars and over the galaxy and to a place where everything was wonderful, amazing, perfect.

But then it was gone. He pushes her back a little. "Parker… I'm not… not when you're like this. I'm not going to take advantage of you."

"I want you to touch me," Parker tells him, and her pupils dilate even more at the words. Hardison almost chokes. But she doesn't notice. She just knows how it feels to be touches when she's on this… and how much better it is that he's the one touching her because he's pink.

"Parker please… please sit down, please," he begs her, but she isn't listening. She does sit back a little, but she's still on top of him. She grabs the hem of her shirt and starts to pull it up.

"No!" Hardison exclaims, and grabs her hands, stilling her. "No getting naked! That's bad, Parker!"

"Okay, no naked," she tells him softly, and he takes his hands away from hers and sighs in relief. But then she pulls her shirt up off over her head quickly. Hardison lets out a yelp and covers his eyes.

"_Breasts_ _in my face! _PARKER! This is… this is not what you want, you're high!" Hardison tries to reason as he covers his eyes, but Parker isn't listening. She can't hear anything; all she can do is feel. She runs her nails up her sides, up her bare skin, and lets out this low, primal sound.

"Oh this is so bad," Hardison mumbles, almost whimpering now. "This is so bad, this is bad from another planet. The planet of bad—PARKER NO!" Hardison screeches and takes his hand away to get Parker off of his neck. Parker makes a sound of protest.

"Parker please… _please_ stop. Please," Hardison begs her, and looks at her pleadingly. Parker pouts; she doesn't like seeing Hardison like that.

"What's wrong?" she asks him, and then giggles, because her voice is almost like a song to her. "Wronnggg…" she says again, slowly this time. She giggles again.

"For one, you're half naked. Can you please… _please_ for the love of everything in this world, put your shirt _back on?"_

Parker pouts again, but she picks it up and slides it back over her head. She wasn't liking that Hardison wasn't liking this. In fact, she _really_ wasn't liking that. In fact, it was making her kind of mad. "But you're my prince!" she tells him, "You're pink!" She starts to climb off of him in a huff.

"Hey, Parker wait," Hardison says and takes her hands, guiding her to sit back down, only this time next to him. "I can be your prince if you want, hell, I can even be freaking pink but I'm not going to… going to… _you know_... with you, not right now. Not when you're like this."

Parker rolls her eyes and flops down, her back on the couch. She looks up at him, still pouting. She doesn't understand. "Why not?"

"Because I care about you too much," Hardison tells her seriously. Parker is silent for a minute while she tries to think about it. She tries to think about it really hard, but nothing seems to be processing much. But she knows she has to say something.

"Okay." She then proceeds to play with her fingers in the air.

"Okay," Hardison said, and breathed a notable sound of relief. He's just looking at her though, watching her play with her own fingers, fascinated by them.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Mhmmm…" Parker answers in an airy voice. Her fingers were in a war with each other, but a war that was this beautiful dance. Almost like a ballerina, but slightly like the waltz.

"Why did you take that?" Hardison asks her, and then he holds his breath for a second until she answers, just peering down at her.

"Only way I could know," she tells him matter-of-factly. Her right hand was winning.

"Know what?"

"If you were my prince," she explains. Now the left was getting the upper hand. Ha! The upper hand… she giggles a moment, then tries to get back on track. "Um, if you're my prince you'd be pink. Never seen pink, until you… you're pink and prince-like. What my mother said."

"You're mom gave you drugs." It wasn't a question; it was just a flat statement.

"To show me," Parker explains. Her right hand eventually won and she brings them down to lie on her chest. She smiles and looks up at him. "I'm not scared anymore," she tells him. "You're pink."

"You're still scared a little," he tells her. He knows her, always. She shrugs lightly.

"Maybe a little, I don't know… it doesn't matter," she tells him as she sits up slowly. She looks at him, just a light little smile, and she runs her fingertips down the curve of his jaw. "Because you're it."

Hardison's eyes are probably as large as saucers at that statement, but Parker doesn't notice. She doesn't notice any of his reactions; she's too caught up in her own world. She leans in and presses her lips lightly against his, just a short kiss, before she climbs off the couch and heads into her room.

A couple hours later, she lay awake, just staring at the wall. The speed in her system is going haywire, but she doesn't want to go back out into the living room. She knows what she did, she knows what she said, and if she weren't rolling so badly she would probably be freaking out about it. But instead she just lay there, counting the minutes until it stops.

She hears a click of the door opening and she shuts her eyes, pretending to be asleep. Footsteps, and then she feels the bed compress a bit as Hardison sits next to her. She's almost holding her breath, not daring to even breathe in case he realizes she's not asleep.

Then he's stroking her hair softly, lovingly. She feels herself smiling a little bit, and when he leans down and kisses her on the top of her head he tells her, barely above a whisper, "I know you're not asleep. You still have at least three more hours."

Parker opens her eyes and turns to face him. He smiles at her softly, brushing a piece of hair away from her face. She takes a deep breath and slides closer to him, snuggling into his chest as he puts an arm around her and holds her. "Don't leave," she tells him in a small, feeble voice. She didn't want to be alone. She doesn't want be to alone ever again.

"I won't, I promise."

**TBC…**


	14. Coming Down

**A/N: I think I'm writing faster than ya'll can review. Dunno if that's a good or bad thing xD Anyway, there's probably only gonna be one more chapter after this, maybe two. But there will be a one shot sequel after this. So be on the lookout. And you know, I really hardly ever shipped these two together in fics before this, but now I want to more. I've totally been corrupted. If you need someone to thank/blame... *points to serenelystrange*  
**

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN  
Coming Down**

Parker is alone when she wakes up.

She sits up straight in her bed and wipes the sleep from her eyes furiously with the back of her hands, just trying to process what's going on and why she feels so… abandoned. What's going on? Where is she? This isn't her bed, these aren't her sheets. Oh god, why the hell does her head hurt so badly? She puts her head in her hands and winces in pain, as her temples are tender to the touch. She lets go and blinks again, wipes her eyes again, and tries to focus.

New York, she's in New York.

God she hates waking up in the morning, half the time she's always confused, at least for a good solid minute. This is worse though, because after touching her temples she knows the only thing that could have caused it: amphetamines. She doesn't even have to remember to know what she did, and why she did it. It'll all come back to her as she wakes up more, but for now, she needs to find… Hardison.

"Hardison?" she asks loudly, slowly climbing out of her bed. Her bare feet touch the cold floor and she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. She grabs her sweatshirt at the end of the bed and slips it on over her head, and goes on a hunt for socks. Finding them under the bed of all places, she puts them on and leaves the bedroom.

But Hardison isn't there. He isn't anywhere in the hotel suite. "Hardison?" she asks again, even though she knows he won't be able to hear her since he clearly isn't anywhere to be found.

Then she remembers last night, remembers all of last night, and sits down heavily on the couch. She remembers him asking him not to leave her… but he's gone. Why would he just…?

Parker brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and laying her head down against them. She sighs heavily. She's probably scared him now. Great. She blames Mickey Mouse for this, or maybe just the mops. Maybe even the hippos in tutus… but she knows it was her. Her and her big stupid fat mouth that she can never keep shut.

Wasn't it her, the one who was scared? Now she's gone and turned it all around so she scares him. Why does she always do this? It's like she has this part of her that feels like she need to push everyone away. She's a big crazy, right?

Not really. Her head might not work right but she's not insane. She knows right and wrong, bad and good. Maybe she does play everything up a little just so people… so no one can ever get close to her, ever hurt her again.

But here she is, hurting herself now. There's a flaw in her subconscious master plan, clearly.

She starts feeling this squeezing sensation in her chest, and she knows what that means. But she doesn't like it, doesn't want to do it, so she jumps off of the couch in a flash and runs into the bedroom. Packing… she needs to pack. She needs to leave. She needs to not get hurt everyday. If he's really left _her_, he'll still be back. The team, the jobs, the whatever. He's young, like her, but he's better with people. Needs them more. And she doesn't, and she doesn't want to see him every day. So she'll leave.

Leaving. Now. Socks, shoes, clothes, bag, toothbrush. Leaving.

She's barely even thinking anymore, except she is. Her thoughts are going too fast for her to truly process them so she just focuses on her task. She's throwing things into her bag, quicker than she thinks she ever has before. She finds her shoes and puts them on, almost in some kind of frantic, desperate rush. She needs to leave. She needs to leave _now_.

She grabs her bag and rushes out of the bedroom, only to be met with the front door opening. She stops, slightly out of breath from how fast she was going… and then her bag drops to the floor, her grip slipping. Hardison looks up at her, then down at the bag, and then back up to her again.

"Where are you going?" he asks her. "You're not…?" but he doesn't finish his sentence, he doesn't have to. She already knows the end of it. He closes the door behind him and stands in front of it, his little way of saying no, but Parker doesn't understand. She thought he left her.

Then she cries, just out of nowhere, breaks down and sobs. She knew the feeling was there before, but she was trying to stop it so much that when it just burst out of her it was like an explosion. Hardison's eyes go wide before he rushes over to her, wrapping his arms around her. "Shhh… hey, Parker… what's wrong? Are you… oh."

Parker doesn't know why he said 'oh,' but she can't think very much, all she can do is cry. Her knees give way and she collapses against him, holding onto his shirt as she buries her head in his chest. His grip on her tightens as he tries to hold her up, but instead gives up and just picks her up, holding her in his arms, almost cradling her.

"Hey, hey Parker? Shh… okay? It's okay. You're just coming down, just the after depression, okay? X uses up a lot of your endorphins, remember? Come on, shh… you're gonna be alright, girl. Promise…" Hardison whispers in her ear, holding her tight. She's still sobbing though, not knowing why she never remembered this. Why she never remembered how bad it hurt.

Probably because she never wants to remember. Selective memory.

He brings her back into the bedroom and lays her on the bed before crawling in beside her. She lays her head on his chest and is trying to calm down, finally. She feels so stupid, she should have remembered. Maybe not when she was six, but now she can remember the day after she did it with Justine. How they fought with each other after that, both accusing the other of using them. Angry, depressed, not listening to anything besides their own feelings, even though it was a lie.

It was real though, of course it was real. She's read a lot, knows the damn pills make your brain bleed and yet makes you happy, which she never understood. But it takes away the happiness so quickly too, leaving nothing but sadness. But no matter how real, how scientific and chemical the reasons are, it's still a lie. It's just what happens, a lie for a lie. No balance, just chaos.

She's already so unbalanced, and this just makes it worse. So happy, happier than everyone else when she's on it. But sadder than all the rest when she's coming down. So sad, so alone, so angry, so scared, and so paranoid.

Everything has its price.

Parker is getting quieter now, just lying against Hardison, still holding onto him. He's stroking her hair and still whispering in her ear, hushing her and telling her everything's going to be alright. When she's finally silent they lay there for awhile, neither of them saying a word.

"I thought you left," Parker admits to him in a whisper. She doesn't even know if he can hear her she admits it so softly, but he does.

"I'll never leave you," he tells her, and kisses the top of her head. Parker closes her eyes at the feeling for a moment, taking in a deep breath.

Then she sits up, slowly. She turns to look at him, her prince, and she knows she must looks so vulnerable just by how he looks back at her. He tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and gives her a small smile. But she's still so sad, and it sucks so badly. She knows she shouldn't be, that everything she thought was apparently irrational and paranoid, but yet its still there. Somewhere in the back of her mind, haunting her. Consequences.

Parker wants to try to feel good again, so she leans in and kisses him softly on the cheek. Then her head dips down as she captures his lips with her own, and her eyes flutter closed. She feels the heat of his mouth against her lips and she parts them to let him in. She lets out a little moan of contentment, just so softly and barely that it was almost not a sound at all, but maybe just a thought that she could hear outside of her own head. She feels his hand take hers and she laces their fingers together as she leans further into him, needing to feel more, needing to feel what he can give her… what she can give to him.

They break for a second and her lips fall to his neck, tasting his bittersweet flesh against her tongue. His grip on her hand tightens and she can hear him let out one short labored breath and she smiles against his skin. "Parker… are you…?" he tries to ask, but she nips at the base of his neck lightly, cutting him off.

"Just kissing," she tells him softly, and she can feel him nod. As her lips trail back up his neck, she can feel him shake slightly beneath her. It was barely noticeable, but she felt it. It makes her smile again, knowing that she's the one that's doing that to him.

"Just kissing," he repeats softly, his eyes closed, before her lips take his again. He's pushing into her more though this time, finally gaining a sense of boldness from knowing what she wants. She's slowly climbing on top of him, and when his arms wrap around her to pull her closer she gasps softly in his mouth.

He breaks the kiss, "Too much?" he asks, worried again, like always. But that's what she likes about him; he doesn't want to push her too far. She opens her eyes and looks at him, and an amused smile breaks out on her face.

"Please be quiet," she tells him, amusement still tinted in her voice, before she crashes her lips to his again, pushing his back completely against the headboard. His grip on her hips tighten and she gasps again, a little louder now. Their kissing is becoming more passionate, their breathing beginning to become labored. Now it's his turn to have his lips fall downwards, and as he takes the sensitive flesh of her neck into his mouth she hears herself moan softly, "Alec…"

But then he stops, and he looks up at her, breathing heavy. "You never call me Alec," he says.

She tries to get control back over her own breathing before she smiles a bit. "Yeah, I know." She doesn't explain it any more than that, frankly because she doesn't know how to. It just came out of her mouth. But she purses her lips together and looks down. "We should stop now though," she tells him. She doesn't want it to go too far.

"Right," Hardison replies, shaking himself out of his haze. He clears his throat and looks down, furrowing his eyebrows. "I didn't…?"

"No, it was good," she tells him quickly, knowing what he's thinking. "It was… good. I liked it."

"Good," Hardison says, nodding again, as if to reassure himself. "Very good then… I guess. Nice. I appreciated it."

Parker smirks as she climbs off of him, amused by him saying he 'appreciated it', like it was some kind of favor. "You're welcome," she says, not wanting to correct him because she thinks it's cute.

She settles in next to him, and they both sit there for a moment, still holding hands. Then she remembers something. "Wait… where were you?" she asks, looking over at him.

"What?" he asks, not comprehending what she's talking about for a moment, before he says, "Oh. Right. The airline fixed the reservation problem, and the only way I could override it was to get into the computers main system at the airport. I didn't want to wake you. Nate called anyway; they have the money and are on their way back on Boston. Eliot took a bit of a beating from some gang who was trying to get to the money first, but Sophie's taking care of him."

Parker sat up straighter, "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, you know Eliot. Always comes out on top." Then there was a pause, and Hardison slaps his hand to his forehead. "That didn't mean to come out as dirty as it sounded."

Parker smirks, "I didn't even think about it until you just said something."

"Great, what's that say about me?" Hardison replies and gives an overdramatic sigh and a shake of his head. Parker giggles, because she has a feeling, but she won't tell him. She doesn't think his poor brain could handle it right now. She doesn't know exactly what she thinks about that, but it doesn't matter. At least not right now.

"_Anyway_," Hardison says, trying to redirect the conversation back to normal. "Nate says he already has a plan to get the mark arrested. Not sure what it is since they were boarding when he called, but we're in the clear. Our flight leaves at seven."

"Tonight?" Parker asks, looking at him with her eyes wide.

Hardison looks at her a bit funny and says, "Yeah… why?"

"But I… I…" Parker tries to say, but can't spit it out. Her thoughts are racing too fast again for her to process them correctly. She hates when this happens.

"You what, sweetie?" Hardison asks her, looking at her a bit worried. But that snaps her back into normal, if only for a second.

"You called me sweetie," Parker says, redirecting her focus. Hardison looks a bit embarrassed and shrugs, but she's smiling. Then she can remember, but she doesn't know if she wants to tell him.

"I need to do something before we leave," she tells him, all she can tell him right now.

"What?"

"I made a promise I have to keep," she explains, only doesn't give any more answers than that because inside she's terrified. So scared, so worried, but she made a promise, and she keeps her promises.

"Okay," Hardison says, letting her not tell him if she doesn't want to. "Do you want me to… come with you?" he asks.

"Um…" Parker starts, trying to think. "No," she says, out of immediate reaction. But then she thinks, he _has_ to come with her, he's part of the promise. "I mean yes," she says.

"Was that a year or a no?" he asks, confused now.

"Yes, definitely yes," she says, and nods once, assuring herself. "You have to come. I mean you can come, if you want." She's backtracking and confusing herself again, because she doesn't want him to know why she's bringing him. Not yet anyway, so she doesn't want to seem too eager, or have the worry show up in her voice too much.

She doesn't know how good of a job she's doing, but regardless, because he's her prince, because he's always so good to her, he tells her, "I'll come with you, if you want me. Wherever you want to go, I'll be with you."

**TBC…**


	15. The Queen, Princess, and her Prince

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN  
The Queen, Princess, and her Prince**

Parker and Hardison stood outside of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, just looking at the building. They both didn't say anything; there really wasn't anything that needed to be said because Hardison already knew why they were there, or at least part of it. Parker is taking deep breaths as she stares at the sign above the door, holding Hardison's hand in a near death grip so much that her knuckles were starting to turn white. But Hardison doesn't complain, he barely even flinched. He did wince a bit at first, but Parker loosened her grip a little and took another deep breath.

Her eyes scan the windows as her heart is beating a thousand miles an hour. Her mother is in there somewhere. Her _mother_. Her real honest to god mother that she hasn't seen since she was so small. So tiny, so young, so innocent. She terrified to step in there, scared to see her again because she didn't know what to expect. Would her mother hate her for never coming to see her sooner? Would she even remember her? The butterflies in her stomach are going haywire again, and she's pretty sure she's about to vomit on the sidewalk, in the snow, in front of all these people.

At least she's near a hospital.

"You alright?" Hardison asks, looking at her.

"I don't know," she tells him honestly. She's watching the snow fall as she looks at the windows near the top of the building, and she wonders if her mother has ever been allowed outside to play in it. She used to love playing in the snow.

"Come on," Hardison tells her gently, and starts walking towards the door. He has to softly tug on her a little so she'll start moving, but once she starts walking she found that she couldn't stop. In through the sliding glass doors, up to the desk, and then she froze. What is she even supposed to tell these people?

"Can I help you?" the woman at the desk asks. Parker doesn't answer though, just stares at her. She can't figure out what she's supposed to say.

"Uh," Hardison starts, looking over at Parker who seems to be a bit mute for the time being. "We're here to see Roma Phillips."

"Relation?" the woman asks, looking at her computer.

Hardison nudges Parker forward a little, "This is her daughter." Parker continues to stare, and the woman looks back at her.

"Name?"

Parker blinks and her eyes shift to Hardison. She has never said her birth name out loud in almost ten years. But then she has another thought, if they're asking her name, then that probably means that only certain people are allowed to see her, if their name is on the list. What if her name isn't on the list? What if her mother doesn't want to see her?

"Miss… your name?" the woman at the desk asks again, looking at Parker a little oddly.

"Oh," Parker says, shaking herself out of her own thoughts. She glances over at Hardison one more time before looking back at the woman. "Annie…" she starts to say, but comes out almost a whisper because her throat is so dry. She clears it and tries again, "Uh, m-my name is Annie Phillips." Parker shuffles her feet a bit, feeling awkward about that admission.

Hardison's staring at her, she can feel it, but she doesn't want to look at him. She doesn't know if she ever wanted him to know 'Annie'. It's not a part of her that she really likes to look back on.

"Annie Phillips…" the woman says as she checks her computer database for a moment. "Alright, you're on the visitors list. And this is your husband?" She looks at Hardison.

"Yes," Parker says automatically, instinct taking over since she's sure he wouldn't be allowed to see her if he wasn't. She holds onto his hand tighter and takes another deep breath. It's going to be okay; she's on the list, which means her mother didn't forget her. But what if she's still mad that she never came earlier?

"Alright, your mother is on floor seven, I'll call the front desk there to let them know of your arrival."

Parker nods, tries to force a smile at her and then turns towards the elevators, her turn to tug Hardison along. He was still staring at her in this way she couldn't describe, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

When they get in the elevator, they're the only ones in there. Hardison is the one who presses the button for floor seven, and they sit there in silence for a whole three floors until Parker bursts out, "I can't do this!" and presses the emergency stop button on the elevator.

"Parker!" Hardison exclaims. "You can't just…" he sighs, knowing that's not the way to approach this. "Hey, girl, come here… look at me, okay?" Parker slowly turns her head towards him, probably looking more terrified than she ever has been in her life. He takes both of her hands in hers and says, "She's your mother… you love her, and I'm sure she loves you more than anything else in this world and _misses_ you, okay? And you know… Parker, you _know _that if you don't do this then you're going to be mad at yourself for the rest of your life, and wondering 'what if.' Am I right?"

Parker lets out a breath she didn't even know she was holding, but nods feebly. He's right; she knows he's right. Hardison's always right about stuff like this. But it doesn't make her any less scared. Why can she do all these crazy things so many people wouldn't do in a million years, and yet she can't do something simple as this? What's wrong with her?

Sometimes she wonders if her brain is backwards. Put in her head the wrong way.

Hardison watches her for a minute, seeing her nod, and he says, "Okay then… come on, I'll be right here with you." She nods again, trying to control her own breathing so she doesn't end up having a panic attack or something equally as horrid, and watches him press the button. They start going up again, and when the 'ding' to signify the stop of the seventh floor comes, she tenses.

The doors open and Hardison has to nudge her forward again, but finally she's walking towards the check in area. "Are you here to see Ms. Phillips?" the older woman asks her with a smile and a little adjustment of her glasses. Parker always wanted to wear glasses, just because of how they look. Though in the long run she doubts it would be good when she was rappelling.

"Yes," Parker tells her, and her voice almost sounds like a little girls because she's so frightened by what's on the other side of those double doors, but also filled with so much curiosity and so much excitement that she wasn't sure exactly which emotion was more dominating.

"Alright, come with me please," the woman tells her with a kind voice and another smile as she comes out from behind the desk and moves towards the double doors, swiping her key card.

Parker is sure she might faint.

"You're alright," Hardison whispers in her ear and gives her hand another squeeze, and Parker nods. Sure, she's great. Fabulous. Totally hovering near the realm of alright, only not. She's so miles away from alright. Like across the galaxy from alright in a little blue police box.

Damnit, Doctor Who again. She tries to remember to blame Hardison for that later, but right now all she can focus on is trying to walk through those doors without looking like a complete and utter nervous wreck. They're passing bedrooms now, one after another, and Parker can feel her heart beginning to get louder, faster.

Yeah, she's so going to throw up in half a minute.

"Here we are," the chipper old woman says and comes over to a blonde woman who's sitting in a chair, looking out at the snow through the window. "Roma, dear, you have a visitor."

Parker can't breathe, and she's sure she's about the start crying. Everything is happening too fast for her system to process it. All these feelings, all these thoughts, all these questions, all these answers. Too fast, all of it too fast. She grips Hardison's hand like it's the end of the world as the woman, her mother… as she turns around and looks at the two of them.

Parker puts a hand up over her mouth, just a reaction that she thought she would ever have. She's seen in it in movies and had no idea why people did it… until now. A tear fell down her cheek, but she didn't care. It really didn't matter anymore. Crying was nothing compared to all of this. "Alec…" she whispers, choking up a bit, "That's my momma…"

Her mother looks at her for a moment, until recognition washes over her face like a tidal wave. "Minnie?" she asks, blinking for a moment, just like Parker does herself now, like she couldn't believe she was real, like she was trying to process it. "Is that you, Princess?" her voice was still airy, still light, like nothing mattered, but it was written all over her face how much it mattered.

Parker lets go of Hardison's hand in a flash and then she's running the short way towards her, wrapping her arms around her mother. She's still crying, and for once she doesn't care that so many people can see her while she does it.

"Annie is it really you? Annie, baby…" Parker sniffs as her mother keeps saying her name as she touches every part of Parker that she can find, especially her face, touching her face while she looks in her eyes and sees her daughter for the first time in twenty years. "Oh baby, you're so beautiful…" her mother tells her, and Parker just holds her, she holds onto her mother that she's missed for so long, her mother that taught her how to see the world in a different light.

Her mother, perfect in her flaws.

It takes the two women awhile to gather themselves, get a hold of their emotions, and Parker looks back, tears in her eyes, and she smiles at Hardison. Her mother was different, she could tell that. She wasn't as much in her own world as she once was, but being doped up on meds for the last twenty years is bound to suppress that after awhile. But she still was her, still in her beliefs, because she turns and looks at Hardison before whispering in Parker's ear, "Did you finally bring me your prince, baby?"

Parker nods and sniffs a little as she leans in and whispers back. "He's perfect, momma. He's pink. I saw it."

Her mother smiles and holds her daughter tight, "You have your palace yet, Minnie? With a garden of roses that the kittens can play in?" Parker smiles, the biggest smile she thinks she's ever had in her life, just from hearing her mother talk of fairy tales again.

"One day," she tells her, and steals a glance back at him. She knows he can't hear what they're whispering to each other, but she knows he can tell it's about him. He smiles a little. "You want to meet him?" she asks, and her mother nods.

She waves Hardison over, and he walks up to the two of them. "It's nice to finally meet you, Queen Roma," he says to her, taking her hand. She watches her mother smile, and it makes her smile. She didn't even think he would remember what she told him about their games. The very little she told him until she made herself stop. She wishes she didn't now because he was… he was so perfect. He accepted everything about her, about her family, about her life, and she loved it.

"Good Sir," her mother says, nodding a bit at him. She tries to contain her smile for that part, but it sneaks out. "The prince for my princess, her knight in shining armor. I didn't know if I'd every be able to lay eyes on you…"

"I made a promise, Momma," Parker tells her seriously. She would never break a promise to her mother, not ever.

"I know… but that's not what I was worried about. Pink… pink is hard to find, darling," her mother tells her patiently, just like she always has, and strokes her hair a little bit. She looks at her daughter and says, "You're every bit as perfect as I knew you would be." And then she looks at Hardison, "And so is your prince. Beautiful together, both of you. So… so beautiful…"

They stayed until visiting hours were over, and Parker promised she would come back as soon as she could. They talked about everything, mostly about Parker's life and what she's doing. They continued to play their little game of royalty, and her mother even took a pen and dubbed "Sir Alec Hardison" with it in the middle of the visiting room, him down on one knee. Parker loved it; she loved every minute of it. It was the most perfect experience she has ever had in her entire life. It was her family, so much her family with her mother and Hardison. He fit right in, no cracks in the design; he just fit perfectly like a piece of her life's puzzle.

She kissed him when they left the building, just wrapped her arms around his neck and planted one on him, in front of everyone, something she was terrified to do for a long time. "Thank you…" she whispers against his lips.

"I didn't do anything," Hardison tries to tell her, but she clamps a hand over his mouth.

"Shh," she orders, then smirks. "Listening?" she asks, and he nods, her hand still over his mouth. "Good," she says, and grins. Then she gets serious. "I wouldn't have gone up there if it wasn't for you. And I… I um…" Parker starts to feel a bit awkward at all this mushy stuff and shuffles her feet a bit before mumbling, "And I liked playing games with you and my mom… it was fun." She still doesn't look at him, she's sure she's blushing.

Hardison mumbles something behind her hand and she snaps her head up. "Oh," she says, and takes her hand off of his mouth. "Sorry I—"

But she's swept up in a kiss that cuts her off, and she decides talking isn't the best route to go now anyway. "I liked it too," Hardison tells her softly, and she smiles. "Come on," he tells her, lacing his fingers in hers as he takes her hand. "Our flight leaves soon, lets go back to the hotel, Princess."

Ever since Parker was little she always thought that good things were just something that happened to other people. Almost like a story, some kind of fairytale in itself. It was something that was never truly real for her until this moment. Perfection, that's what she'll call it, even though she knows true perfection doesn't ever exist. She knows they're going to fight one day, she knows she's still going to cry sometimes at night, but this, right here, was as close as she ever was going to get, and it was all she needed.

Sir Alec Hardison, her prince and knight in shining armor. The only person in the entire universe that has ever really understood her, cared for her, and made her feel how a princess should feel.

Because being with him is like being royalty.

**THE END**

**A/N: The story is continued in "Cinderella's Castle", the sequel to this.  
**


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